Return of the Yellow Dragon: Part II
by AGrandMalfunction
Summary: A darker power has risen over the Universe of the Four Gods. Hikari, armed with cynicism and Nyan Nyan, sets out in search of a final, unknown hope - the legend of the Yellow Dragon.
1. Prologue: North

**Return of the Yellow Dragon: Part II**

**Prologue**

**North**

* * *

_"Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust."_

~ Neil Gaiman ~

* * *

Silence reached for Hikari, and she submitted to its cold, ungentle embrace.

If Nyan Nyan spoke in the early days after they left Eiyou, Hikari had no recollection of it. She knew that at some point they had decided to no longer walk on the road, in order to avoid soldiers and travelers and other passers-by. She did not know how they walked through the forest thereafter, how she found her way through the thorny patches. She barely remembered when the landscape had started changing, the rich lush green of Kounan's northern recesses giving way to the thorny sparseness of Hokkan's south, or when they left Kounan behind altogether. All she remembered of those first few days was walking, walking, walking.

On the day that they left the capital, Nyan Nyan had taken her as far as she could without giving them away through their chi signature. The took a minute to _See_ as Nyan Nyan put it, the little girl taking Hikari's hand and offering her the same insight into the world that she had in the forest where they had met Eian. Thus, Hikari _Saw_, and felt clearly in her marrow something pull at her, guiding them northwards. Thereafter, they had walked.

Initially, Hikari did not mind this. If anything, she welcomed it. Walking was numbing. There was a lot of pain all over her body, from having her arms sliced open by the descending sword of a soldier, from basically flying headlong into a tree back in Kutou, from falling to her knees as Chichiri brought Taka and her back from Taikyoku... and walking accentuated every injury, and thus shielded her from her pain.

She experienced a kind of complacency for the first two days, as she trudged along, barely cognizant of Nyan Nyan's gentle presence beside her, her feet finding a steady rhythm that she rode until she fell over with exhaustion and slept. Her drive to put great distance between her and the Suzaku Seishi, her father and the grief gnawing at her heart, was stronger than the pain. She was, in some ways, walking _into_ the pain, and she almost reveled in it, beginning to wish never to heal for the raw wounds were full of an immediate, urgent agony that kept her from feeling everything was running away from. She did not remember sleeping or eating, and at the end of these two days, she drove herself to an extreme state where grief simply took a backseat to her hunger and exhaustion.

A while later, she woke up, without without any knowledge of when she had fallen over with tiredness and passed out. She vaguely knew Nyan Nyan had kept her warm through nights that were getting steadily colder. For the first time, then, she accepted the berries and herbs that Nyan Nyan gave her, if only because they made sure she kept walking away from Kounan, to the cold, forbidding, unknown north.

* * *

After this, they formed a kind of rhythm: walking, passing out, eating whatever meager (and steadily growing more meager) food the landscape offered, walking again. In Hikari's head there was a litany: _find the Shinzaho, find the Shinzaho, find the Shinzaho_. And when she was incredibly exhausted, this would change to _you have failed, you have failed, you have failed_, the voice she had heard at Taikyoku, which she was now somehow sure belonged to an invisible part of the Nine-Headed Beast.

Each of those nine pieces visited her as she walked, though she was never sure if this was when she slept or when she was awake, notions of time in its linear form having ceased to have any meaning. So she simply watched them, all of the pieces of Xiang Yao's soul: Xiang, the brains of the operation, Jiang, beautiful and plainly devoid of emotion, Jiu, the creepy Prime Minister from Eiyou. The thousands of small, slithering snakes, the woman who shook in fear of the Black Dragon, the tiny girl with blank, empty eyes. The creepy, terrifying old man. The Serpentine god-like form who hung around the Dragon's neck.

And the empty space which liked to speak only to her, to taunt her, to leave her destroyed.

Questions were now starting to form in Hikari's mind. For instance, why had the empty space spoken only to her? The Black Dragon hadn't known what he was saying to her... but _why_? Why make the effort to hide something like that from him?

There were no clear answers, even though she felt she _knew_, somewhere in the depth of her own fragmented intuition. Answers, ideas, thoughts and emotions danced out of reach. And so, while sometimes these ideas and questions presented themselves to her, she simply walked, accepting her physical pain and avoiding everything else.

* * *

About five days after they had left the capital, the cold really started to descend. Winter came swiftly to the northern country of Hokkan, as Hikari discovered quickly. There was no refuge for preparation for the frozen months, and only a few days lay in between the end of the warm season and the beginning of the snowfall. Though Hikari did not know it, this year it had come down upon faster. The further North they went, the swifter it descended upon them. Until one morning when Hikari woke up frozen to her bones and shuddering, to a world cast in white and shadow, and it was suddenly impossible to keep her thoughts and grief at bay anymore.

It seemed as though the growing cold had settled into her bones, and a kind of frigid dread took up residence in her chest and refused to move. Sorrow reached for her, and Hikari did everything she could to run from it. Sometimes, she thought she saw it following her in the distance. Sometimes it was a dark rider in the snow, a shrouded form; sometimes it was a little child that reminded her eerily of the little girl from the mountains. Either visage frightened her, and so she walked further into the thorny forests, further away from the road, only aware of the direction where she was heading because of Nyan Nyan.

* * *

Nyan Nyan, though Hikari would not admit it or even speak to her sometimes, kept her alive. The stitches in Hikari's arm started to itch soon, untended as they were, and in her frustration, the thirteen year old scratched them raw until her arm was bleeding again. It was Nyan Nyan who brought her herbs to heal the exposed flesh, crying all the while about not being able to use her powers to "fix!" and "cure!" Hikari, numb to everything, barely registered what was happening.

Indeed, without the tiny girl, Hikari would have starved to death, or frozen. As it was, Nyan Nyan could only gather what the environment offered them, under strict instructions from Hikari not to use any magic to give them away, and the offerings of the forest grew steadily sparse.

One day, they found no food and hardly any shelter, and so Nyan Nyan took them to a nearby village. Hikari stole, a few apples and some bread. But she shivered despite her fuller tummy and Nyan Nyan's protection, a strange weakness and exhaustion taking hold of her. She suspected she was feverish.

It was when she discovered blood on her lower clothing that Hikari finally gave in and wept, loathing herself for her weakness and the fact that she wanted her mother. It was silly, perhaps especially because it was not an unknown thing. She had seen plenty of her classmates transition to the earliest stages of womanhood. She was even capable of creating a makeshift arrangement to handle the situation a bit. And yet, it somehow reminded her of her mother, and Reishun, and Hanako; of women she knew would have understood and offered support. She wept, perhaps for several hours, pushing Nyan Nyan away viciously every time the little girl came closer to try to hold her, refusing to accept the support she craved from her.

Darkness, composed of her grief and fear and all those terrible things she was running away from, rose like a fever and claimed her, guiding to a land filled with terrifying, monstrous dragons whose roars she could not get away from, Xiang's hideous, burning visage, and her mother, blazing bright red and somehow too far to reach...

* * *

When she awoke, she was in a wooden cabin, warm from firewood she could hear crackling in the vicinty, rested and in significantly less pain, and somehow hollow without the pain to fill her. Nyan Nyan, in her little girl form, was lying beside her, looking at her with huge, sorrowful eyes. She had evidently brought Hikari to a very old widow's home, and the old woman had brought Hikari back to health. Her fever was gone, the bandages on her arms had been changed, and all the pain in her body had receded, leaving behind a thick, black vicious hatred that had her lashing out at Nyan Nyan and, sometimes, at the old woman too. Why had they healed her? Now there was even little that stood between her and her grief.

In the two days that it still took her to be able to walk again, Hikari was more miserable than ever. Snow covered everything, robbing the world of colour and sound. In this soundless, white world, grief reached for her and, without anything to do as her treacherous body recovered, Hikari found herself unable to escape. So she wept; when the woman brought her food, she ate, and when the weeping left her empty and broken, she slept only to wake up with her pillow wet. Sometimes, the old woman sat beside her, and put a hand on her forehead. Usually Hikari turned away from her, but on some occasions, an irrational, hateful anger took a hold of her and she snapped. Still, the woman came back, painful understanding in her eyes. Clearly, she knew something about loss herself, and though she seemed a little hurt when Hikari lashed out at her, mostly she only seemed full of understanding.

A few days later, Hikari woke up to a slight, crackling pain in her cheeks, where the salt of her tears had frozen to her dry skin. Her tears had stopped flowing. Monumental effort led her to stand up, and she could walk to the window. The cabin was a part of a very small hamlet in the middle of the forest, it seemed. The forest itself stretched out before Hikari; in the distance she could see mountains, rising sharply into the clouds that hovered over them. The world was strange, silent and white. As she looked out of the window, she thought she saw the little blind girl in the forest, thought she felt the vacant gaze settled upon her. But in the next moment, the girl was gone.

It was this abrupt disappearance that convinced Hikari she was being followed. Her blood ran cold then, and a terrible fear settled on her, reminiscent of what she had felt on Mt. Taikyoku. It was quite logical for her to be followed, of course, but knowing it logically and seeing the blind girl in the forest, just watching somehow without eyes, present and completely cognizant of her moves... that was completely different.

It took every ounce of courage she had, but that night, Hikari crept out of the house into the bitter cold. She stole a coat and warm boots, and simply left without saying goodbye. Because there were no words, really, to thank a woman who had given her refuge, no words to explain she had to go. No words that could somehow communicate the gratitude Hikari felt without making a lasting connection with the woman, which the thirteen-year-old was unwilling to make. The best thing she could do for her, she knew, was to leave, before the Nine-Headed Beast found a way to hurt her as well.

And so she left, a thief in the night, Nyan Nyan warm against her chest, walking steadily through the cold, dark forest, not daring to look anywhere but at the path before her. She could feel the little girl's gaze on her and it scared her terribly, even though she did not think the girl was able to actually physically harm her like Jiang or Xiang had (indeed, if she could have done it, there was no reason for her to have held back this far).

It was perhaps the most difficult of the nights she had spent thus far, the most frightful. But in the end, despite the frigid weather, her frozen, almost numb feet that she feared for a bit, and the cold horror in her heart, dawn came and with the sunrise, she felt just a little brave, more and more certain that this was the right thing to do.

* * *

For the two days that it took them to reach the edge of the forest, Hikari was extremely conscious that she was being watched, that the vacant eyed girl was nearby, somewhere, somehow keeping track of her every move. She could not see her initially, though she was somehow sure of her presence. At sunset the next day, Nyan Nyan and her took a few minutes to _See_ again, guiding her to that space within herself where she could see the world in brighter, more luminiscent colours. It was then that Hikari realised there was an area in the vicinity where she could not _See_ anything other than a thick blackness, impenetrable and horrifying, as though looking within it would reveal monsters she could not handle. After this, Hikari began to notice the little blind girl, her presence always causing her stomach to drop away from her, always quite far away, never making an attempt to approach her, as though she was waiting and watching for something.

Neither Hikari nor Nyan Nyan slept for those two nights.

The next day, Hikari also began to spot the rider in the snow – the rider she now knew was not an apparition or an embodiment of her sorrow. He was distant, unable to see them as Nyan Nyan suppressed their life-forces, but certainly catching up, it seemed. Hikari wondered if it was because of his presence that the little girl did not approach them, though for some reason, this did not really strike her as true. At any rate, she was far from grateful. If anything, the rider frightened her even more. She wanted no more. No more people to die, no more connections to draw her into that space where she could feel this kind of loss, no more wanting so she did not have feel such painful absences... _no more, no more, no more..._

The stretch of woods that had offered them shelter came to an end by late afternoon, on the second day after they had left the old widow's home. This was the end of lower Hokkan, Nyan Nyan explained, and to follow Hikari's intuition as they had _Seen_ the day before, they would have to travel further North, beyond the forest, into the plains and up the steep, threatening mountains that lay before them now.

Hikari's cowardice or bravado or whatever it was that was giving her momentum faltered here, for a bit. The mountains towered over them, offering no hopes of shelter or refuge. This was it, Hikari was sure. This was the final obstacle between her and where she needed to be.

Here, at the edge of the forest, Nyan Nyan and Hikari stopped for a little while, gathering their resources. They would need food, especially, and some extra warmth for shelter, if they were going to make it across the mountain range. Nyan Nyan explained that this was no small obstacle; the mountain ranges of Hokkan were formidable fortification and largely what protected the country from the political drama of the other lands. It was also going to get substantially colder and harsher the further they climbed.

It took some arguing but eventually Nyan Nyan managed to convince Hikari that a use of her powers in this terrain would not be amiss - Nyan Nyan could save them a day's climbing, and at least they would leave behind the little blind girl and the rider in the snow and get a clearer head start. Hikari felt fearful and reluctant, mostly because she knew now that doing this would give away their chi signatures quite a bit, but conceded eventually out of fear and exhaustion.

Nyan Nyan took her hand and pulled her into the now familiar space full of motion, and they were gone.

* * *

Several moments later, a rider on a black horse pulled up to the spot at the edge of the forest, looking around with a grim expression on his face. It had been only a burst of energy, but he knew this was where they had been, the girl and her small traveling companion. And he could see, even without sending, the daunting mountains towards which they had gone.

He watched the mountains for a few moments before spurring his horse into a gallop, heading north as well. He did not look behind to see the small girl who stepped out of the forest, her blind white eyes steadily following his form, until the darkness swallowed him whole.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Welcome to "Return of the Yellow Dragon: Part II". Generally speaking, it is likely to be a bit difficult to follow Part II without reading Part I, because there are a lot of characters and arcs floating around (I'm not great at keeping these short). I'll also try to keep including little bits of information (about minor characters and things like that) in the upcoming chapters, and will add a summary here in a few days.

_Most _importantly, I would like give to **a GIANT, ENORMOUS, LOUD shout-out to MercuryMoon** \- who has been patient and far more resilient than me in making sure I keep moving on this. Thank you so much for your motivation and presence, and the time you've taken out for this. I value it so tremendously. Big big hugs to you...!

**Obligatory Disclaimer and Other Shiznit: **This story is based primarily on Yuu Watase's Fushigi Yuugi, but also uses elements from Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden and some of the Fushigi Yuugi Gaiden books. (Only some elements, though, because of, er, a sort of blatant selective amnesia. So, for instance, Hikari is a girl, which she isn't according to the Sanbou Gaiden.) I will try to stick to manga/anime canon as much as I can. Elements of Chinese and Japanese mythology will probably be employed, also with a blatant disregard for authenticity and mythological autonomy. I apologise in advance - but mostly this fic is supposed to be fun and ... I wouldn't take it seriously. Apologies for stupidity about the Japanese language, but feel free to correct me please - if and when I use stuff like that. Oh, er, and obviously I'm not making any money out of this - I'm just a graduate student with too much time.

**Please do review! You know you want to *grin***


	2. 01 Inferno

_**Please Note:** As there are a lot of minor characters floating around, I've added footnotes at the end to avoid confuson. Please refer to those! Thank you...!_

* * *

**Chapter One**

**Inferno**

* * *

_"But the stars that marked our starting fall away._  
_We must go deeper into greater pain,_  
_for it is not permitted that we stay."_

~ Dante Alighieri ~

* * *

The food poisoning had hit Reishun about a day after they had left Eiyou. The uneasiness that had taken residence in her body when Eian had left had grown to queasiness through their watchful night thereafter. By the time they reached the village where Oda, the pig man, and his grandmother had offered them food, it was a raging bout of food poisoning.

Reishun wasn't crazy. She knew what it was about. It was the stress of the affair, the fact that Hikari was missing, that her love life had gone to pot, that her traveling companion seemed to think riding for a whole day on one fish and no water was a good idea, her jealousy-cum-compassion for Houki and, well, the fact that she had lost two people she loved very much and had never known. Reaching Oda's village had been the tipping point, of course, because Oda and his grandmother were gone as well, and the village was now little more than a pile of remains, drenched from Amefuri's unexpressed emotions and relentless raining, not even smouldering anymore.

It was a hell of a lot to digest and so her system had seemingly decided it wasn't going to digest at all. Everything that went down came right back up. She got it. It was disgusting but totally understandable.

That she did understand, however, did not seem to make it stop. She threw like clockwork, every three hours or so, and after they came upon the village of the Black Bear Tribe, she threw up every other hour.

The Black Bear Tribe was gone - missing for all intents, and even Amefuri, who was able to have full blown conversations with mud to find out what had happened, could not seem to track them. They concluded that they had either disappeared of their own volition or someone particularly skilled at erasing their tracks had forced them to disappear. After this, the relentless rain turned fierce, almost violent, and it got significantly colder. The Shoryuu River seemed on the verge of flooding whenever they came upon it.

Amefuri was trying to make up for it, in her own way. She would force Reishun to eat, even though everything Reishun ate seemed to purge itself soon after. She insisted on more breaks while they travelled, riding east into the thick forests of Kutou, made sure they had something in the way of actual shelter when they slept.

Had Reishun been less consistently nauseous and dizzy, she would have realised that, by her standards, the Byakko Seishi was being positively maternal. But she was consumed by her own trauma and sorrow. Her old nightmares were back and her nights now were haunted by wolf-like figures, lurking in the shadows. Sometimes they followed her out of her dreams and she thought she was looking at wolves in the vicinity. But she knew that this was Nuriko's past coming to haunt her, perhaps triggered by Miaka and Rokou's deaths.

* * *

About a week later, they came upon Donghai (1), fishing on the banks of a swollen river in the nude, looking more than a little battered.

"HEY!" he declared, seemingly rather excited to see them. "I thought it was more thunderous than usual!"

Reishun, trying to voice concern, alarm and greeting all at once, promptly vomited over his fishing line, while Amefuri's face, and the sky, darkened in response. "Are you alright?" asked Donghai, looking very concerned. Given that his face was covered in bruises and his lip was bleeding, Reishun could only respond with an incredulous sort of look.

"Are you alright?" she demanded.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Amefuri, in a tone both bland and aggressive, as she stared steadily away from the erstwhile bandit.

"Oh, I'm - fishing?" offered Donghai, looking sheepish. Clearly, the cause of his discomfort was hardly his state of nature, for he made no move to cover himself up. As a tall and also rather heavy man, he presented a sight that could be best described as "fleshy", though not necessarily unattractive.

"In the buff?" asked Reishun, whose nausea had not originated in his nakedness either, and looked at him quite steadily, even if she was a bit unsteady on her feet.

"Yes," responded Donghai, with some dignity.

"Why?" snapped Amefuri, but Reishun shrugged.

"Why not? Looks comfortable," she muttered, drawing an incredulous glare from Amefuri towards herself.

Donghai, who had the decency to go a little red at this conjuncture, lowered his voice and beckoned them to him. Reishun knelt down, putting both hands on the ground to keep herself from falling into the river. Amefuri, still staring at the sky, refused to do any such thing. "It's a trick, you see. I'm supposed to hang out here until the band comes back, and then offer myself up as a recruit- hey, hey ow!"

Reishun had twisted his arm to the back. "You were supposed to quit all that stuff!" she cried, as he squirmed.

"OW, I did, okay?! Stop it, aren't you supposed to be ill?!" wailed Donghai, waving his other arm rather ineffectually.

"I am!" said Reishun, with dignity, releasing his arm and trying not to topple over herself. "That should have snapped your arm off."

"My condolences then," said Donghai, dryly. He sat there for a moment rubbing his shoulder, eyeing her with trepidation. "I have quit. I've submitted my services to the rightful ruler of Kutou - and as a former bandit, this seemed like a good fit. Everything's gone to pot here since the dragon ascended, you know."

Reishun did know. Civil unrest at Kutou had escalated in the last week. Since the ascent of the Black Dragon, the tribes had been cast into a kind of political Brownian movement, everyone trying to ally with the bigger fish. As none of the fish were particularly stupendous, everything remained chaotic.

"What do you mean the rightful ruler?" asked Amefuri. "Which one are you talking about?"

This was a relevant question in the current milieu. There were at least five claimants to the throne: the daughter of the erstwhile Emperor's first cousin, the son of his second cousin (who had no real claim other than that he was a man and younger than most others who were came in line before him according to Kutou's laws of succession), the Prime Minister's son from his second wife, the Prime Minister's first wife and the Emperor's son from a concubine. The whole thing gave Reishun a headache.

"I mean Shiori, the daughter of his erstwhile majesty's first cousin," said Donghai. "As opposed to Takahiro, the son of his second cousin, whose camp I'm trying to infiltrate. It's a whole mess right now, but I think Shiori has some good ideas about what to do with the country." As Amefuri raised an eyebrow, he shrugged. "Well, she doesn't seem to advocate violence. Well," he shrugged, pointing at his face, "not unnecessarily. And she was closer to my village than the others-"

"Why do you have to be naked?" demanded Reishun, getting to the more immediately relevant problem at hand.

"You see, it attracts attention," said Donghai, grinning rather obnoxiously. "Well, that and the tribesmen took my clothes to make it look like I've been abandoned by them so it makes more sense for the opposition to take me back. See?"

"All too well," said Reishun, standing. "Okay, well, maybe we should leave you to it so we don't cause more death and destruction on our quest, right Wu Ming?" But her glare towards Amefuri went unnoticed. The Byakko warrior was finally looking at Donghai with an air of recognition and cunning in her eyes. As Reishun realised what she intended to do, she shook her head vigorously. "Nonono! No, I don't think that's a good idea!"

"We are looking," said Amefuri, ignoring her completely, "for a man who travelled through this country in search of the final copy of the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho. In the midst of the political turmoil, it has been difficult to track him. And you can help us."

This was Amefuri's way of asking for help, by stating it as a fact. And Donghai, who Reishun knew felt indebted to her, would do everything he could. But this was exactly why he mustn't, considering that people who got involved with them seemed to end up dying. "I don't think that's a good idea," she said, shaking her head.

"Of course I can help you. In fact I'm hoping to infiltrate the enemy camp, see? I can see if they know anything and bring back information to you, yes?"

Donghai waved Reishun, who was spluttering objections, aside and chose to stand up. Amefuri's left eye twitched and she looked firmly at his face and away from his nether regions. Reishun, however, did not and was momentarily distracted. There was a difference between seeing a man's bits and bobs up close like this. Her only prior sighting of what her mother had referred to as a "one-eyed monster" had been when one of her little brothers, suffering from growing pangs, had elected to air his monster out by running through their village naked. This was different, more detailed, and not uninteresting.

"Huh," said Reishun, "it's not monstrous at all." Then, as Donghai started to look a little offended, she added respectfully, "Though not for lack of trying."

"I guess they were right about it drawing attention," said Donghai, grinning at Amefuri, whose discomfort was reflected in the intermittent and unsteady rainfall.

* * *

It came back to him in pieces, what the Commander had done to him in an attempt to break his mind. He woke up every night with a sense of being violated, tortured. For a while, he wasn't sure if he had been awake for all of it, and slept through everything else, or the other way around. And then, as bits of his memories came back to him in acutely painful ways, he was reminded of the truth, that he parts of him had been awake at different parts of time.

It was an old trick Taiitsukun had taught him in his early days of training, of compartmentalising parts of himself and his memories. For him - and indeed for anyone with trauma of the kind he had faced - it was essential to be able to put things on hold for a while, until it was more bearable. Taiitsukun had warned him that it was not the most preferable way of protecting himself. Her teachings advocated a full and total acceptance of his experiences. She had wanted him to face everything, to experience the most painful aspects of his darkness, and come to the other side. But even she had to admit his pain was too great to handle all at once. And so, she had taught him how to fracture his mind, put little bits of himself into small boxes in his mind, and lock them up until he was ready to use them.

Taiitsukun had also of course explained that this could have a seriously detrimental effect on people. One could lose bits of oneself for years and sometimes forever. One could also become intoxicated with the idea of no longer having to feel some of the most painful aspects of things. Chichiri had been sorely tempted himself, but over the years, and with Taiitsukun's guidance he had been able to bring himself back home.

This time it seemed he had locked away two parts of himself - one, which Kagasuki had drawn up in his mind through gentle caresses an a sense of safety, was the location of Taikyoku; and the second, which came back to him now in bits and pieces, was that aspect of himself which experienced the most grievous of Commander Xiang's tortures.

For the few days that Chichiri was too weak to move, he was visited by visions of Xiang, which sometimes transcended the comfort of his dreamscapes and stood waiting for him when he opened his eyes. Later, Chichiri was told he had been delirious with a fever that he took several days to recover from. But there was no erasing the vision of the Commander, standing calmly by his bedside, doling out instructions to the demons in his mind. Sometimes they were nameless, faceless soldiers from Sairou, and at other times, he recognised them as his own personal demons. Always, they listened to Xiang, using instruments to violate, persuade, draw out screams and leave him completely wasted, with a sense of humiliation that even for him, with his training and sense of self, was undoing.

He emerged from these dreams to find the state of affairs in Kounan worse than ever.

Sometime over the week that he had been struggling with his own mind, they had shifted base. Houki told him they had moved twice, from Rokou's home to former Prime Minister Wu's house (2), and then, when all state officials were hauled up for questioning, they had shifted once more to Tamahome's village. They had been a tiny group, comprising eight people who together formed the face of the "resistance" against the monstrous Black Dragon. The Dragon himself, for the most of it, spent several hours of the day perched atop Suzaku's shrine, singing his own praises in a booming voice that echoed all the way to Tamahome's village. None of the officials had returned, including Master Wu, who had helped Houki shift Chichiri before taking off as well, whose calming presence Chichiri missed - if not because he had felt calm at all, then because he seemed to soothe Houki and offer a certain degree of company and camraderie that they others could not. Even Chichiri could not; his reality as a Seishi was very different from Houki's, as the Empress. The old Prime Minister did, to an extent, understand what she was going through, having been her supporter when she had served as the ruler of Kounan.

On the other hand, Houki was anything but traumatised. She was sad, certainly, and over the three days that they stayed in Tamahome's village, Chichiri caught her staring off into the distance frequently, with an air of sorrow about her that he had seen only once before, just after Saihitei had died. He knew that just like him, she was battling back the demons that would pull her down into a spiral of depression, and so he did not protest as she helped him, as she lit up the candles that were not advisable but still cheerful in the evenings, and as she sat by him.

At Tamahome's village, they waited. Houki explained that it worked best for them, not too far from Eiyou, and still coloured somewhat with the spirit of Tamahome's family and the beliefs of the people. The villagers had not exactly welcomed them, there was still some reverence in the eyes of even those who were suspicious. In some cases, this reverence was mingled with deeply suspicious glances, that they directed towards Tamahome's old house. Chichiri and Houki had not told them who they were, of course, but there was an undeniable air of something being up. That they were residing in a house that had been left vacant as a monument to the warrior did not help matters either. Chichiri thought the villagers had a right to their nervousness. The Black Dragon was a terrifying visage, and his shadow, as he flew overhead, could cast the whole village in darkness. Having some obviously suspicious, and in Houki's case, quite regal-looking people living amongst them could not have been a comforting thought.

**I am vengeance,** the Black Dragon informed the lands in booming tones, on the morning when everything changed. **I am darkness. I am death and destruction. And I will wreak havoc on the lands if you do not worship me and honour me and-**

"For heaven's sake," muttered Houki. She was not by nature an impatient woman, but had been pushed to the limit by the Black Dragon's regular announcements of grandeur. "Let's close that door, shall we?"

Chichiri, who couldn't agree more, stood and hobbled to the door with the support of his staff. It was no longer painful to walk, but he did have the sense that his ankles were about ready to give way. The red hot scabs from his sessions of torture with the Commander had now given way to a layer of tough skin, which felt dry and ready to crack as well. All in all, walking and moving around was a tough affair. But as Houki stood to shut the door for him instead, Chichiri waved her away. "No," he said, smiling. "I'd rather move around now."

At the door, however, he paused. Tamahome's house had the benefit of being at the edge of the village, not far from the graves where his siblings were buried, which meant that Chichiri could observe the two figures approach from quite a distance unhindered by other houses. One of these, even from a distance, looked distinctly like Master Wu, though he was leaning rather heavily to the right. The other Chichiri could not recognise.

**Those who defy me, those who stand against me, they shall all PERISH. And none in all the lands will then ever doubt that I am the greatest god of all!...**

"Master Wu is back," said Chichiri, frowning. "And he's brought someone with him."

"What?" said Houki, getting to her feet.

"Maybe you should hide, Empress," suggested Chichiri, uneasily.

"If Master Wu is with him, he probably knows all about me anyway," said Houki, her tone calm. Her tone had been quite calm since they had left the Palace, especially until the other ministers had been called to the capital. Chichiri knew a part of it was a knowledge that her dynasty was on the verge of collapse, and that this knowledge was now common. Some of the most likely contenders for power were those they needed the most in their resistance against the Black Dragon, and Chichiri could appreciate her sense in keeping herself together. Now it seemed as though she was unwilling to let go of that composure, though of course she must be under a great deal of strain.

Chichiri chose not to argue with Houki - though he would have felt more relaxed if she had stayed hidden as well. But the truth was there was nowhere to hide, and she was far safer with him. Even if he was at his weakest, he could still magic them away from the space, as long as he got there in time.

_Not unlike how you left Miaka behind on that mountain,_ said a nasty voice in his head. Chichiri took a deep breath and put it aside.

"Then stay here, but keep close, so if need be I can-"

Houki was already beside him now and touched his arm lightly. "I know," she said, and gave him a small smile.

They watched the two figures on horses approach the village, trying not to focus on the Black Dragon's words booming in the background. As they drew closer, Chichiri realised the person accompanying Master Wu was rather impressively armed, with many blades and a bow and arrow, and had a headdress suited for a general on. It took him one more moment to realise it was not a man at all, but a woman - a familiar woman, at that, one he had once wrestled the Shinzaho away from.

"Anzu!" he said, surprised. "What on earth-"

"We had sent a message to the bandits of Mt. Reikaku," said Houki, sounding a little awed herself, as though she had not quite expected the message to be responded to. "Miaka had insisted, because of Tasuki's allegiance and how they had stood up for us in the last battle."

"But what is she doing here?"

Chichiri, who did not know, was beginning to realise something else. Master Wu, leaning precariously on his horse, was holding himself as though injured and not quite able to hold his own weight. Anzu too looked quite battered. "Oh," he said, something twisting in his gut. He knew, as Houki shifted abruptly to get the herbs and warm water ready for him, that something had gone very wrong.

He hobbled forward to help Anzu and Master Wu, who was clutching his stomach. The bandit queen had helped him step off his horse and was holding him up, looking quite grim. As Chichiri reached him, she shook her head. The old Prime Minister stumbled a bit, and Chichiri caught him by the arms. Something hot and wet fell on Chichiri's feet and he knew it was far, far too late for the old man. Putting an arm under his shoulder, Chichiri guided him inside.

"Master Wu! Oh..." The helplessness that had refused to touch Houki's voice so far reached it in that syllable, as she expressed the sorrow Chichiri couldn't bring himself to feel just yet.

The house smelt like blood and something else, something somewhat burnt, and Chichiri tried to not think of why those smells were mingling in this ungodly manner. They lay him on the single cot that had once belonged to Tamahome's father. Anzu, looking furious, left the house immediately. Chichiri, bent over Master Wu to examine his injuries, thought she was shielding them from how upset she was, but he realised as she ran to the next house that she was trying to warn the villagers. The rumblings of the Black Dragon were now drowned out by Anzu's yells that the villagers get up and leave.

A hand grasped Chichiri's wrist and tugged.

"No, just let me look-"

He knew before he uncovered the wound on his stomach that there was no point. Only a fatal wound could cause the spillage from a human body. It was, in fact a miracle the man was alive at all. But he had gathered himself up quite literally, pulling himself together, to come back to his Empress. Chichiri didn't want to look at him to tell him it had been for nothing, but as the hand tugged he had no choice. The eyes that met his were full of understanding, and a little beyond pain. "I know it's too late," said the man, faintly. "I kept trying to tell her to leave me behind, but she refused. Her followers are all still fighting... Bandits are stubborn," he finished, haltingly.

Chichiri covered him up and took his hand just as Houki reached for him as well. They both held his hand and he smiled.

"I am not in pain, Empress," he said. "I think that why I know the end is here. But it is a privilege to see you again before I am done." He frowned, breathing quite heavily as something in his eyes shifted. He seemed to be remembering something of import that he wanted to share with them. "We were betrayed," he said, heavily. "It was the young Minister Gu, but he can't be blamed. They punished him as they punished any of us. They interrogated us, and we all held up, but young Gu... Everything is destroyed now, all the connections we were building. No one will come forward anymore. I don't know how much he told them, Empress. But you must leave. They will know you are here, they will work it out. You have to... warn the villagers," he turned to Chichiri. "You and Anzu. Go now. I would rather die here, with you Empress," he said, looking at Houki. "If you are willing to say with me until the end..."

"I am here," said Houki, firmly, taking his hands in both of hers. She looked briefly at Chichiri and nodded, and though Chichiri was reluctant to leave her alone even for a second, he stood up and left.

"They took my wife," he heard Master Wu say as he headed to the door. "I will be with her soon."

* * *

It was nearly daybreak, and though time had ceased to have much meaning for Taka, he was vaguely aware that his horse would need to rest soon. He noticed some fireflies glowing rather feebly by the edge of the forest, their incessant Brownian motion having slowed down, much like his own despair and grief, which seemed to be flickering disjointedly, unending and yet rather vague, weak. Almost as though his heart wasn't in the actual grieving.

When Houki had asked him to seek out the other Suzaku warriors, Taka had taken up the task with great enthusiasm, hoping that it would distract him from the prospect of facing Miaka's death. He had assumed that much like his former self had become enraged at the death of his family, he would be driven by a kind of furious fervor. He had even hoped he would transform into something like a demon and wage some fruitless and yet deeply satisfying destruction upon everything in his path. And yet all that had claimed him was a sense of disjointedness, a lack of focus. Even his grief refused to stay inside him, plant itself within him and grow to some sort of momentum. There was no vector to this experience, it seemed; it wandered, directionless, as Taka struggled to stay on his own route to the other warriors.

It hadn't helped that his search had been quite directionless as well. He had found an old woman by the side of the road about two weeks ago who had told him about a great healer in the southern reaches of Kounan, one who could cure any affliction with the touch of his hand. A little way down the path she led him down, he encountered a group of villagers who affirmed the same thing, before throwing dung at his head. Still further along, they were told by a very wise looking young man that the healer had lost his marbles and was now attacking everyone, but he was to be found further North. Up north, however, they told him to go east.

Now he was heading south again, based on largely nothing but a hunch. The northern parts of Kounan were plagued now by soldiers from Sairou and occasional visits from the Black Dragon Gong Gong, who enjoyed relating tales of his own exploits to a fearful public at enormous volumes. A dull venom filled Taka when he thought of the Black Dragon, but this too travelled very slowly along his veins. Maybe he was still at Taikyoku with Miaka, and so all this hatred and sorrow would take correspondingly long to reach him. Maybe he was wandering too far from her to ever be able to come back. Or maybe his body knew that there was nothing to go back to and so all his feelings had nowhere to land.

Idly, he missed Tasuki. If nothing else, the red-haired warrior would have punched some life into him.

Taka's nostrils were met by a salty sort of scent, though this filled him with no great surprise; the air had been growing saltier as he'd traveled southwards, the number of fishing villages increasing. He estimated he was now almost at the coast itself. Sure enough, another mile down the relatively untouched road he was on (avoiding the main roads as instructed by Houki), he came upon a clump of trees and then, suddenly, as though saying 'peekaboo!', the ocean was before him, stretching out and looking very much as though it wanted to inspire poetry about distance, longing, grief, depth, eternal life and so on. Taka felt only a vague impulse to offer it a rude gesture.

Shortly, he perceived some movement by his feet, and looked down to find a bow-legged cat, who looked altogether uncoordinated - though whether this was just his coloration (a confusion of black and brown spots all over his backside, and a patch of black between his left eye and ear) or something in his aura, Taka couldn't say for sure. He had, however, a sense of affiliation that he registered with exactly as much enthusiasm as he had registered the dung the group of villagers had thrown at him.

"Alright," he said, looking at the cat, who mewed in response. "Are you Mitsukake's cat?" The cat mewed again. "Are you going to lead me to him? Are you hungry? Are you Tama's great great great grandkitten?" Taka ran a hand through his hair. Of course, the cat was just mewing because it was a cat. He posited this question him, and was offered a meow in response.

Sighing, he dismounted and tied his horse up. Before he could decide if he wanted to put his faith in the feline and have him lead the way to his owner, the cat disappeared. Taka articulated the essence of the rude gesture he had resisted making.

It took him a while to find any kind of habitation. "Habitation", though, was a generous term for what he encountered: a cluster of houses somewhat hidden within the trees. Silence greeted him at the edge of this tiny settlement and he knew, before he even stepped further, that it was completely empty. He imagined that the soldiers from Sairou had made quick work of this space. Had he been present when the others had located Mitsukake, he would have found the small hamlet rather eerie. They were completely empty, the streets full of broken stones and statues of Suzaku, and a person more experienced in these matters would have anticipated zombies.

Taka however kicked aside a few broken shards and grimaced. Well, his hunch was stupid. The cat was stupid. The whole damn village was stupid. In fact, he was stupid - with his total lack of direction and inability to feel grief or fear or agony or anything.

Deeply frustrated, he sat down on the side of what might have been a street at a time, but now seemed like a disaster area. As a result, he missed entirely the ornament that came sailing out of one of the windows of the houses at his head.

"Ouch!" said Taka, putting a hand to his head. Surprise gave way quickly to pain, and he rubbed vigorously; he had been struck by what looked suspiciously like Suzaku's glorious tail feathers in metal form. Something else whizzed through the air and landed by his feet. Taka bolted up and drew out his sword, slicing the third object that came hurling at him. "OY!" he roared, not very articulately.

"Oy yourself!" called someone, in a far more cheerful and somewhat high-pitched tone than Taka had anticipated. "Now go away!"

Something else crashed by Taka's foot, and he jumped. "Wh- OY!" he roared, again. "STOP IT! I'M NOT GOING TO HURT YOU!"

_Smash!_ "Oh I know," sailed the voice, sounding rather smug. "But I'm going to hurt you. So leave!"

_Swoosh! Thump-thump-bump! Smash! Clang!_ Taka darted around, now getting a little desperate. He hadn't anticipated this. Admittedly, people throwing dung at him had been something of a low point, but this was an all-out disaster. "ARE-" _Zoom!_ Taka jumped out of the way. "-YOU-" _Thwack!_ "-owowow-" _Clank!_ "-MITSU-" _SMASH!_ "-KAKE?!"

"Are you Mitsukake?" demanded the voice, ceasing fire for a second.

Taka panted, squinting at the houses, trying to see where the objects were coming from. It took him a moment to gather what this smug, annoying voice had said. He growled. "What?! Of course not! Why would I ask you if I was Mitsukake?"

"I thought I'd check," said the voice. "You don't seem too intelligent."

_Ding!_ Something that sounded quite heavy landed altogether too close to Taka, and he threw himself bodily into an alleyway. "OY- _YOU COULD HAVE KILLED ME_!"

"YES," shouted the voice, "SO GO AWAY."

"NOT UNTIL YOU TELL ME WHERE MITSUKAKE IS!"

An eerie silence followed these words, and Taka found himself held by an ominous sense that he was in over his head. So strong was this sensation that it took him a minute to recognise the sense of something prickling at the top of his head as a warning, and not simply a physical manifestation of being overwhelmed. He looked up just in time to catch sight of a round, falling object plummeting towards him and barely managed to raise his arm in time to keep it from smashing his skull in. The object shattered and Taka was left drenched in some foul smelling substance that he did not want to recognise as the contents of someone's chamber pot. Spluttering, he looked up to find a young, cheeky looking boy smirking at him. He couldn't have been older than eleven.

"I can keep this up forever, you know!" he called down, two storeys above him. "You should just leave."

"You're not a soldier!" said Taka, as this visage registered.

"Slow on the uptake, aren't you?" The smirk drifted down in the boy's voice.

"No, wait!" snapped Taka, shaking his head and showering his surroundings the disgusting, slimy stuff that, by the smell of it, had been collecting for a while. Disgusting, absolutely filthy. And yet, it wasn't life-threatening, and this was not a soldier. "You're not from Sairou! And you're not supporting Sairou," he muttered, as an afterthought, looking around, "or this wouldn't have happened..."

"Well spotted! Really, you're a genius!"

The boy himself had disappeared. Sounds of grunting and pushing were issuing from up above and Taka had the impression that he was going to get another chamber pot to throw down at him.

"WILL YOU PLEASE STOP!?" Taka exploded, losing his head completely. "I'M TAMAHOME, SUZAKU SEISHI, AND I'M LOOKING FOR TWO OTHER SUZAKU SEISHIS, OKAY? I'M NOT HERE TO INHABIT YOUR STUPID VILLAGE, I JUST NEED SOME INFORMATION!"

The unsettling sort of silence returned and Taka cast about, now a bit nervous. The next thing that fell on him could be heavier, sharper and more pointed. This boy was completely crazy, but had also thought his strategies out very well - a lethal combination. It took him another minute of surveying the windows up above before he realised his foe was a lot closer, leaning against the wall at the corner of the alleyway.

"Agh!" yelped Taka and jumped back, raising his sword.

"Relax," said the boy, shrugging. Then, he wrinkled up his nose. "You smell!"

Before Taka could point out that this was largely this boy's fault, he had released what looked like a rope. Something over Taka's head swished, swoshed and what felt like several gallons of water drenched him in the next instant. He stood there for a second, furious, dripping and ready to smack this nut.

But the nut in question stuck his leg out quite gracefully towards Taka.

It took Taka a moment to realise there was a tiny red character glowing on his foot.

* * *

A roar hit the sky, a deep, booming, echoing roar full of rage. Rage only a god could muster. But Anzu was shouting loudly enough for her voice to dominate the scene.

"...you're all IDIOTS! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?! YOU WILL DIE IF YOU DO NOT LEAVE!" He had a moment to be impressed by how loud of a voice was coming out of this relatively petit woman. A crowd had gathered at the centre of the small hamlet.

"You have brought trouble to our village!" A tall man who Chichiri believed was the head of the village was screaming back at Anzu. "This is YOUR doing! We have NO REASON to listen to you!"

"You don't need to listen to ME, you $^# $&amp;* fool, you just need to get going! The Black Dragon is coming and he's going to destroy the village!"

"I think he just wants to kill you!" said the man, drawing himself up his full height so he was towering over Anzu. Being as she was usually surrounded by rather large bandits all the time, Anzu was not terribly affected by this. "Why don't we just give YOU to him and be done with it?!"

"Because," she said, in a deadly voice, "I'll kill you if you touch me."

"STOP!" yelled Chichiri, horrified. Anzu stopped drawing her blade out, and turned to glare at him, exhaustion and frustration etched into her face.

"Why? It's just one less %#%$&amp; for Gong Gong to burn to a crisp," she sneered.

"Anzu," said Chichiri, in a warning tone, and she sighed, shaking her head. It wasn't, Chichiri knew, just that this man was towering fool or defying her. It was that she had been through a battle before making sure a dying man could die with a friend, that she had left behind her fellow bandits in Eiyou and was almost certain she would never see them again. For her to handle this man and his fear-induced anger was more than Chichiri would have expected.

In the distance, Gong Gong announced loudly: **I will burn everything that stands in my way now. You have had weeks to let go of the old ways. Now you will all pay.**

The crowd seemed to freeze over, the mutterings coming to a terrified halt. Before Anzu could inform them that she, in fact, had told them so, Chichiri chose his moment to step up, leaning on his staff.

"My friends, he will not show you mercy," he said, firmly. "Even if you do hand us over." Anzu bristled next to him, ready to draw her blade onto anyone who dared try any such thing. But this was a village of farmers, not warriors, and Chichiri had no doubt that she had the advantage, even if she was sorely outnumbered. "He will not spare you or your children. You must leave. It is our fault," he admitted, bowing his head, leaving the tall man completely bewildered. "He is following us, but he isn't going to spare you."

People muttered in the wake of his words, and for a long moment, Chichiri thought he they would storm over them with their shovels and ploughs.

"Can you take our children?" asked a woman, suddenly. "We can try to run but we won't make it far. You are Chichiri, the traveling monk, the Seishi, aren't you? Can you take our children?"

"I-" Chichiri paused, in a moment of consideration. He couldn't, if he was being honest. It would cost him physically to do so, and he was not sure he could recover from that. But there was no way he could refuse to help.

Before he could so much as open his mouth to respond, the tall man who had taken on the role of the leader had dragged the woman who had spoken to the front of the crowd and thrown her to the ground. "_You keep your mouth shut Maika!_" he screamed, raising a fist just as Anzu's blade came to rest squarely on his throat.

"Now can I kill him, Chichiri?" she demanded, sweetly.

Chichiri hobbled over to give the woman a hand up. She grasped his hand, now crying. It was not difficult to see that this was not an uncommon occurrence in her life. "Will you?" she sobbed, desperately. It was suddenly a lot more difficult to ignore the pain in his gut. Maybe it was this woman's name; an image swamp to the surface of his mind, an image of another much happier looking woman who would have stood for everyone in his village without question. "Please... just take the children. Take them!"

"I will," Chichiri heard himself say. He was still not sure that he could manage it, but he was a Seishi, and that meant he would try. "I will take them."

"MAIKA-" the man began, but this time Anzu stepped in front of him, bringing her left hand to his chest. A small blade gleamed next to his heart and he shut his mouth and took a step back.

"That's what I thought," said Anzu, rolling her eyes, before turning to look at Chichiri with some concern, as though wanting to talk him out of trying to transport a dozen or so children to Mt. Reikaku with magic. But Chichiri was quite determined and Anzu realised this as well. "Get them," she snapped, urgently at the woman "Get the children. The bigger ones should go with you - he can't take all of them-"

"No, I'll take them all," said Chichiri shortly, pulling the woman to her feet with some difficulty.

"No, you won't," said Anzu, firmly. "You can barely walk. If you can't manage it, they will be left here to die, you understand? You there!" she snapped at the woman, turning away from Chichiri's sudden sense of failure and sadness, "quit your snivelling and get the children, the little ones." She seemed to be speaking to Chichiri as much as she was to the woman. "The rest of you need to go, right now. Take the road heading north and turn west into the forest-"

"But there are bandits in the forest!" said another man, sounding as though this was more terrifying than a seventy-foot dragon roasting him to crisp.

"WELL WHAT THE &amp;*&amp;#&amp; DO YOU THINK I AM!? GET YOUR %&amp;#*&amp;%# BEHINDS MOVING!" roared Anzu, creating general alarm. But it did the trick. It seemed to snap people out of their frozen fear. Pandemonium exploded as people made a hurried dash about the village trying to collect their loved ones.

Anzu glared at Chichiri as the villagers scattered. "Are you really going to be able to take all those children?!" she demanded, furious. "Master Wu told me what happened-"

"I have to," he said, clutching his staff. "I have to. That's what we stood for - Mitsukake and Hotohori and Nuriko and Chiriko-"

"They died," said Anzu, shortly. Her eyes were gleaming on her face, covered in dirt from whatever they had encountered. "You need to stay alive, Chichiri."

"But this is why I am alive. To help the people of Kounan. What kind of Seishi am I if I can't help them...?"

Anzu stared at him for a moment, as though wanting to say a lot more to him. Tasuki's unheard but florid cursing hung between them for that moment. Then, she raised an eyebrow at something behind Chichiri's head.

"OY!" she yelled, and Chichiri actually stepped back from the volume. "YOU! YOU DON'T HAVE TIME TO GET YOUR BELONGINGS, %&amp;%&amp;%&amp;&amp;$ MORON! I'm going to go with them," she said, turning back to Chichiri and sounding as determined as he felt. He took a deep breath and nodded. "They're %&amp;%&amp; &amp; idiots, really. Go back to the hut. I'll send the children. Take them and go, go to Mt. Reikaku and ask for Yoichi, you can trust him - and Chichiri!" she said, urgently, grabbing his arm and looking exceptionally fierce. "Don't die, okay? He'll never get over it."

Then, without waiting for a response, she turned and walked away, bringing out her sword. "If you don't get moving," Chichiri heard her roar, "I WILL KILL YOU MYSELF."

With some pain, he turned and hobbled back to the hut, leaving Anzu and the villagers to deal with each other. A part of him knew that Anzu staying back was not really likely to help either. She could sort of herd them all out towards the forest, and if they ran fast enough, they had a chance of making it. But the Black Dragon could raze the village and the forests to the ground in one breath. He put it aside, the thought that this might be the last time he saw Anzu alive. There was no other way. Taiitsukun's warnings were echoing in his mind, but she was gone now, and there was no time to think about it.

Houki was still sitting by Master Wu when he reached, and he could tell by her expression that he had passed on.

"Chichiri," she said, as he reached her.

"I'm taking you now."

"But- where's Anzu?"

"She's decided to stay here and take the villagers to the hills. Come now," he said, firmly, offering her a hand. He could hear something outside, something loud and rumbling, getting louder and louder. His heart clenched a little in fear as he twisted around, dragging Houki with him into the small space through which they hurtled.

* * *

The first time Chichiri made the trip from Tamahome's village to Mt. Reikaku, it took him a few seconds after it was over to really register that he had stopped moving, his head spinning as they had spun in that space of in-between. It was Houki's hand on his arm steadied him somewhat, and after a long moment, and a deep breath, he opened his eyes.

They were at Mt. Reikaku, he noted with some relief, right before the caves where Anzu and her inner circle dwelled. As they were spotted, he straightened up, expecting to have to defend Houki and explain what was going on until they could locate Anzu's trusted bandit, Yoichi. But the bandits seemed to know who they were. Some of them even hastily cleaned up their grubby faces with spit on the way to greet them. It did not take too much effort to find Yoichi, a young man of average build and height, who seemed cockily certain of everything.

Chichiri asked him to take Houki to a safe space, and then, before Houki could protect against it, he had twisted and gone back to Tamahome's hut.

The house was on fire, and seemingly empty. Screams echoed outside the hut, screams so base and so human that Chichiri felt his heart turn over. The village was burning, and so was everyone in it. Had Anzu got out? Steadying himself, he took a moment to look around the house. For a reason he couldn't have named, but that he was most grateful for, he crouched down and found the two little girls hiding under the bed. "Come on!" he said, coughing a little as he reached for them. "It's okay, I'm getting you out of here. Come on!"

They scrambled out wordlessly, their faces streaked with dirt and sweat. "Where are the others?" he asked, looking at them urgently. The girls looked too shaken to answer at first, but then the older of the two raised a finger and pointed outside. "Do you know where they are?" asked Chichiri, and again, had to wait as the words started to make sense before the older one nodded. The younger one seemed beyond words altogether. "Take me there. Don't worry," he said, as she started to shake her head in horror, "I won't let anything happen to you."

But no amount of coaxing and cajoling would get the girls to move, and Chichiri hadn't the heard to push too hard and force them back into the flames that scared them so much. And so he took their hands, threw his cloak over them, and twisted them away to Mt. Reikaku.

The second time he landed, it took him longer to stop spinning. To him it seemed as though he was hurtling without any control over what was going on. To his great and everlasting relief, when Yoichi shook him roughly, his knees were on the ground, aching from their stumble, and he was quite still. "I have to go back," he said, looking at Yoichi because having another person to look at seemed to centre him somewhat.

"You're don't look so good, man," said Yoichi, in a gently lilting tone.

But Chichiri shook his head and stood, shakily leaning on his staff. He twisted again, and this time brought himself back to the centre of the village.

The fire was everywhere, burning through houses, trees and, Chichiri realised with a burst of horror, people, lying strewn around the ground. The fire and smoke rose in billows and along with them rose something else, something phantasmagorical, twisting into shapes and forms that dissipated before Chichiri had the time to recognise them. He did not know what they were, if they were truly these, the demonic apparitions, or if they were a fragment of his own mind that he had pushed far away and was now coming back to him.

A thin scream in the vicinity snapped him out of it.

"CALL OUT LOUDER!" he yelled as loudly as he could, but the roaring of the flames was enormous. The thin scream echoed again, and Chichiri darted forward towards one of the larger houses. "WHERE ARE YOU!?" he yelled, hoping to get them to make some sound again, anything that would tell him where they were.

An agonising ten minutes passed, in which Chichiri darted from house to house, finding nothing but bodies aflame and tumult. He kept yelling, and at the same time trying not to inhale the smoke. For the most of it, he did not succeed, and those phantom shapes followed him as he failed consistently.

Then, finally, he heard it, a piercing scream that had been shielded by the flames all around. "WHERE ARE YOU?!" he bellowed, tears pouring down his face against the black smoke.

And he heard someone call out, so loudly that their voice echoed over the roaring fire and smoke. "HERE! CHICHIRI, WE ARE HERE!" _Anzu._ He felt a little dizzy at this, but realised it was the smoke beginning to cloud up his lungs.

He followed her voice then, finally reaching a house that had not been too far away from Tamahome's own home. A tree had fallen at the entrance, and Anzu and whoever else was in there was trapped. Chichiri twisted and shifted into the house, stumbling as he landed only to have two strong arms grab him and keep him from falling into a burning cot.

"Chichiri!" Anzu shook him, bringing him back. "_Get them out!_"

There were five children, Chichiri realised, his heart plummeting as he did so. Five children and Anzu. He could not possibly take them all at a single go, and his own head was spinning so viciously that he was not sure he could make another trip. But he had to. There were no two ways about it. He'd had to get through the deep, personal torture that Commander Xiang had meted out to him; he'd had to protect Taikyoku and, later, save Hikari and Miaka. And he had to get these people out, all of them.

"I'm coming back for you," he said, firmly.

"You're bleeding, Chichiri," she said, almost gently, wiping something dark and wet from under his nose. "Just get them out."

"I'm coming back," he repeated, gathering the children around him.

He twisted again, this time carrying the weight of five souls with him. The darkness rose and claimed him. Something struck him heavily on the back and, propelled by its force, he drifted for what felt like a century. But there was a niggling voice, a firm if terrified voice, calling him back. There would be time to drift, time to stop, but this was not it.

He opened his eyes to find Yoichi leaning over him anxiously.

"You really don't look so hot, man," he said.

Chichiri frowned. There was an irony in his words he did not appreciate. Anzu's face came flooding back to him and he pushed himself up, panicking. "How long have I been out? What happened?"

"Not long, a few minutes," said Yoichi, stepping back as though a bit scared of him. "You just fell there and didn't move for a while, man..."

A few minutes. A few minutes could be way too late. Chichiri looked around, turning in his stop. "My staff," he said, clutching his cloak around him tightly. "I need my staff. I need to get her back."

"Here," said Yoichi, handing him his staff. "But I don't think-"

But Chichiri had twisted away again. The darkness he could float on rose again but he pushed it away firmly. _There's no time,_ he kept telling the darkness. _There's no time. Not yet._ When he opened his eyes, he was in the same room where he'd left Anzu, but could not immediately see her because of the thick black smoke. He pushed himself up from the floor, which was rapidly getting warmer. "Anzu?" he said, barely able to breathe. As he stepped forward, he stepped on something that clattered under his foot. He looked down to find Anzu's sword, held tightly in her hand. The bandit queen was lying prone on the floor, evidently overcome by the smoke.

Coughing, Chichiri bent to take her arm. Then, for one final time, he twisted into the darkness.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Apologies to anyone who had already read the chapter I'd uploaded earlier - sorry for the confusion too. It took me some time to sort through the chronology - and I think it's a bit better this was. The good news is, the next five chapters are ready to be posted. One chapter a week, coming up! :D

Once again, a** BIG GIANT THANK YOU to MercuryMoon**, for all her help and encouragement. Please head to her profile to read her awesome stories!

**_Footnotes:_**

1\. **Donghai** is the bandit that Reishun captured in a cauldron (Part I, Chapter 24: Safety), who then came along with Reishun and Amefuri through Kutou. Reishun and him formed a kind of bond - he was a rather honest bandit, on the whole. After Hikari was captured by Commander Xiang of Sairou. They left him in Kutou when they were racing to Kounan to get to Hikari.

2\. **Master Wu** was, as mentioned, the former Prime Minister of Kounan, who held the position until Hong Jiu (current PM and part of the nine-headed beast) took over. He supports Houki and helped her in connecting with Rokou (Part I, Chaper 23: The Gingerbread Man). He was very old and his wife was ailing quite terribly.

_Disclaimers apply (check the prologue for more info!)_

**Please review for good reading karma and telepathic cookies!**


	3. 02 Scratch My Back

_Warning for some crudeness (yes, it's a Tasuki chapter). Also I've played on some Chinese words in this chapter – in case this is confusing, there are footnotes! Joy!_

* * *

**Chapter Two**

**Scratch My Back**

* * *

_"For, in truth, there is no sure way of holding other than by destroying" _

~ Niccolò Machiavelli ~

* * *

Crouched behind a large rock and listening to the howling of the wind punctuated occasionally by the sounds of shattering glass from the pub, Hikari began to appreciate her toes, which had always seemed stubbly and useless to her before. Not being able to feel them anymore, however, had cast her toes in a brand new light of recognition of their worth. All in all, she was rather attached to the idea of keeping them.

Physical expediency, like cold, hunger and thirst, had a way of cutting through what Hikari now considered finer, more luxurious feelings, like fear, anger and sorrow. She was distantly aware that she was still being followed, by both the tiny blind girl and the black rider, though she had not seen them in the last day, or two, or however long it had been since she had landed on the top of the mountain. But the idea did not instil any fear or alarm in her at all.

It was terrifying in its own right, albeit in a disjointed, far away sort of way. Enough to make sure Hikari did not allow Nyan Nyan to pop them into the inn, as Hikari was afraid they had already given too much away about their location and she was keen to put some distance between the black rider and the blind girl. However, what was more immediately relevant and pressing was the clarity that she wouldn't make any headway without her toes, now frozen, missing or holidaying in Majorca, for all she could sense. Which sounded pretty sweet. If she got out of this alive, she was going to Majorca, wherever the hell that was.

It was really the wind more than the rapidly sinking cold air that was both heavy and frozen that made it impossible to focus on anything else at all. It invaded the coat she had stolen from the old woman, in an aggressive assault that did not stop, pummelling against skin, flesh and then bone, until it seemed that she was made of only cold.

There was no escaping it either, and though the large rock Hikari was crouching behind offered some respite, that she was losing feeling in her extremities was rather unsettling. Hikari was sure, in a way that inspired no great fear but a sort of stark self-awareness, that she would die if she didn't get out of the cold and warm up. The only thing keeping her alive was Nyan Nyan, snuggled in her orb form against her chest.

They had not made much progress in the last two days, stopping the previous night when they had found a cave on the mountainside, fearing they would find no shelter ahead. The harsh wind had evolved through the night into an all-out snow storm. Yet, her internal compass, which she was now sure was leading her to the Shinzaho of Genbu, which Eian had lost ("Of all things! The git," she'd cursed at Nyan Nyan, furiously), firmly pointed north, and so north they went. They made slow progress, heading towards where Nyan Nyan was certain there was a small village with some kind of inn.

Indeed, there was a sort of hamlet, getting covered up rapidly in the snow. Most of the houses seemed quite quiet – Hikari tried not to use the word "dead", given that the whole affair was beginning to feel rather morbid. But one large building, two storeys high, seemed to be full of raucous and drunk people. More importantly there was a warm glow coming from within. Hikari had determined that she was going to sneak into the kitchen and sit by the fire. The alternative being to freeze to death here.

Still, it took her a few moments to coax her body to step back into the bitter cold.

When she did, tears of frustration and agony froze against her cheeks almost instantly. She raised an arm fruitlessly to try to keep the snow away from her face, and tried to remember how to move. It took a few moments to recollect that she had to keep putting one foot in front of another, and after that it was kind of mechanical.

Something was happening to her and she was aware that in slightly less trying weather she may have wept. But there was no energy, no time; she had lost the ability to cry or even think. The litany of _'keep moving, keep moving, keep moving'_ set up a halting sort of rhythm in her mind. It occurred to her distantly that this was some kind of survival instinct. The orange glow from the pub, the sounds of human laughter and occasional singing, seemed to pull her, like gravity. She was only motion, only her feet, only very cold, moving constantly and excruciatingly slowly.

A while later, she registered that she was now standing before the inn. From within emanated loud male voices, by the sounds of it the kind of crowd Hikari did not want to meet alone. Perhaps, she reflected, there was a back entrance. A back entrance that would require another agonising ten or fifteen minutes to find.

She was briefly filled with self-loathing, for not being an older and more imposing woman, or a warrior like Amefuri, or a man. It was painful to choose reason over life-giving warmth, and, not for the first time, reason cost her more than she had to spare. But reason did prevail in the end. She had to find the back entrance, sneak inside and find the fireplace in the kitchen. And the people she was most likely going to meet there, well... that couldn't be helped. Hopefully they would not mind offering her shelter, and if they did, then Nyan Nyan would pop her out elsewhere.

With a monumental effort, she turned, and then stopped. It took her a moment to realise it wasn't the snow that was glowing – but the beautiful, translucent woman standing just behind her.

Soi.

* * *

The Byakko Seishi were all crazy, Tasuki decided, within about a week of traveling with Subaru. She told him everything she knew about Kagasuki, Amefuri and Kokie, the last Seishi who had elected to be reborn, not to mention the two had who had decided not to be reborn were Tatara and Toroki.

Tatara's spirit was canoodling happily with Suzuno's, of course, (and after a hundred years of separation, who could blame them!). Toroki, a noblewoman who had been a part of the royal court, had had an unfortunate rivalry with Suzuno as a result of a misunderstanding about the priestess' motivations – believing the latter to be after a high royal position. That she had also had a bit of a soft spot for Tatara had never helped the situation, Subaru explained. Toroki died trying to protect Tatara just before the summoning of Byakko. Understandably she had elected not to come back.

On the other hand, Kokie had come back out of a relish for life. He was a bandit lord in the western reaches of the Sheng Shan, the mountain range that Mt. Reikaku was a part of, in the east. Tasuki had heard of him; amongst the bandits, he was known as The Belly, though there were many legends about why. Some believed it was because of how much gold his followers seemed to steal, while others believed it was because of his lair, a deep bowl like belly carved into the Sheng Shan Mountains. But, as Subaru explained, his symbol also meant "stomach", and that he had, in both his lives, been rather fond of food. Looking somewhat awkward, she had refused to elaborate on the matter further.

Of Amefuri she had only said that it had been a difficult birth for her, so far. It appeared that the woman could control the weather, but hadn't quite got a handle on her powers just yet.

And Kagasuki... well, that was a strange story, one that Subaru shared with as much detail as she could remember. For an old bat, her memory was pretty good.

Kagasuki's key skills were to do with memories and the mind. He could track memories in people's minds, steal them, bring them back and so on. He had been born to a tribe of mapmakers, people committed to creating maps of the four realms of the gods. He had joined them second to last – the last to join them had been Amefuri in the previous birth – and always been somewhat mercurial, secretive. Subaru told Tasuki that she believed his skills had been much greater than what he had let on. He had always been interested in people, their stories, understanding their psyche and what made them who they were. Identity was a kind of game to him, and so he had never seemed too grounded.

"You know, we didn't feel him come back to life," Subaru said, after she had told Tasuki all of this.

"Well, there was something quite funky about the man, like you just said," said Tasuki, whose patience was at an all-time low. Travelling with Subaru was a process filled with too many stories and not nearly enough sake to stomach them. On the other hand, she could cook, and so he was eating a plate of something she had concocted in just under an hour. With sake to hit the spot, he would have been a happy man. But the best Subaru could do in that department was some herb tea, to which Tasuki said, "No thank you, I'm not a %*$* **$ hundred."

Realising that Subaru had been silent for a while, he looked up to find that she had a peculiar look on her face. "Kagasuki once asked me the strangest question," she said, slowly. "About whether a soul when reborn retained the identity of his former life... I wonder if he found a way around that..."

"Around ... what?" asked Tasuki, unsettled. Crazy. They were all crazy, damned Byakko Seishi. "Around dying to come back to life?!" He was prepared to laugh, but when Subaru said nothing, he felt a chill run down his back. "Are you saying he didn't really die?!" demanded Tasuki, whose tolerance for creepy things was very low. "I saw him, Subaru, he was about thirty five, or forty at the most! He had to have died...!"

The lines on Subaru's face seemed more pronounced in the light of the fire they had built to cook their food. "He was about thirty-two when we lost him," she said. "I don't know what I'm saying, Tasuki. But if anyone could imagine himself cheating death like that, finding a way around mortality... well, at least we know that he wanted to… _oh!_"

Tasuki started horribly. He was not good with supernatural creepiness. Zombies, undead monsters and creepy Seishi left him positively jittery. Which was why, he thought furiously, he had allowed his attention to slip long enough for them to be cornered by some of Sairou's soldiers.

"%&amp;#&amp; ( ," Tasuki told them. "#%&amp; (+ *$*) *# $&amp;%&amp;( ) - " And he went on in this vein., cursing floridly, while the soldiers regarded them with equal apprehension. Once the initial horror had subsided and it became clear that they were not being attacked by an army of undead creepies, Tasuki relaxed. They had bumped into soldiers before and dealt with it quite well.

Oddly, in this venture of befuddling Sairou's finest men, Tasuki and Subaru were assisted by the political situation had, which had gone to pot since the Black Dragon had taken over.

A couple of days after they had set out, a gigantic winged creature had burst out of the horizon, set a series of fields aflame (thereby giving them enough time to hide) and flown dramatically, and admittedly quite gracefully, towards the city of Arudo.

He was gargantuan, the Black Dragon. His wingspan stretched at least halfway around the royal fortress, still visible at the horizon. His scales gleamed oddly, not shining in the sunlight so much as they seemed to absorb the light. A heavy darkness cast over Arudo as he landed on one of the watchtowers, causing a significant portion of it to crumble under his weight. And even from the distance, Subaru and Tasuki could hear his great, rumbling tone, as he spoke to the people of Arudo.

Thereafter, a flurry of soldiers, traders and the few farmers whose fields had been destroyed frequented the roads, even the less travelled ones they were taking.

As a result, when Subaru put a hand on Tasuki's arm rather firmly, and offered them an elaborate lie, about Tasuki being Subaru's great grandson, and them traveling eastwards to visit some relatives because their fields and wagons had been destroyed, the soldiers believed them.

"Ah," said the biggest and burliest of them. "Of course, Obaasan. It's a difficult time – we're on the lookout for bandits, so you'd better be careful."

"The Reikaku bandits?" asked Tasuki, as innocuously as he could. Which was to say, not very innocuously. He grinned, fangs flashing. "I've heard they're %&amp;*%&amp; ) scary and led by an impressive, awesome, scary %&amp;%&amp;#( ) leader— OY!"

He dove before Subaru on an instinct, having heard the whizzing of arrows through the trees. The soldiers weren't as alert, and the flurry of arrows caught them on their backs, bringing the conversation to a swift halt. An unfortunate survivor drew his sword out and yelled, an aggressive if incoherent war cry, before an arrow shot out of the trees and struck him squarely in the head. He keeled over.

"What the–"

Bandits emerged from the trees, then, dropping down mostly gracefully, their weapons drawn and ready to be used. Tasuki was impressed despite himself – his band of merry ruffians had never pulled off such a coo, dramatic entrance. There was always at least one idiot who was drunk off his mind and burst into song before they could surprise their enemies. Well, the singing was surprising, but not entirely as intended.

Tasuki, still attempting to shield Subaru, cast about – but they were completely surrounded. "Damn, what the hell—"

Someone very short stepped forward, someone whose obviously feminine features were offset by her stoic, solid build, her generally displeased expression and, by the looks of the axe she wielded, her strength.

"You are cordially invited to dinner," she said, quite politely, though this was offset by the gleam of the blades around them. "You will come with us now."

"Oy, this here is—"

Subaru stepped on his foot. "We are amenable," she said, extremely polite as well, and to Tasuki's confusion, bowed low. The short woman mirrored her.

"You may call me Shi," she said, sounding as though anyone who made the mistake of calling her that would die painfully. "Follow me now."

"'Shi', eh?" said Tasuki, whose perception of subtleties had never been too profound. "Does that signify death or %%&amp;( )! # poetry? Or, don't tell, you're in fact a %&amp;%* man, right?"(1)

About ten minutes later, he was bound by a set of chains and walking with behind Subaru's horse.

They were led through the forests to a set of labyrinth-like caves, which reminded Tasuki strongly of the catacombs under the fortress in Arudo. It all felt rather familiar, and Tasuki knew intuitively before they even reached the end of the caves that they were going to meet The Belly. He elected not to share his view that these caves were sort of like his intestines.

At the end of the cave was a hundred foot drop into a canyon that Tasuki could truly appreciate. It was the ideal bandit stronghold, protected from the outside, very difficult to reach and easy to protect – a fortress that had not had to be built at all. Despite his chains and lack of sake, he was rather impressed.

They were taken, then, to meet Kokie, the solemn Shi accompanying them. Subaru turned to Tasuki urgently before they entered the bandit leader's chambers and said, rather fiercely, "Let ME do the talking."

Tasuki didn't have any time to object, before they were ushered inside his quarters.

He could immediately appreciate Kokie's relish for life. For a cave inside a canyon, the place boasted of luxury. The finest carpets, cushions and drapes made the room look like a soft, comfortable landing space more than a renowned bandit's headquarters. The soft light that entered through the windows scraped into the rock only added the gentle luxury of the space. A mixture of rich plum and dark crimson had been elected to offset gold and white. It was luscious, if a bit loud.

They moved further into the room until they were standing before the bandit seated on a large number of cushions in the corner. It was at this point that Tasuki truly began to appreciate the name "The Belly".

Kokie seemed to have interpreted his Seishi name very literally. Sometimes, the Seishi names were interpreted rather bluntly. Tasuki was reminded of the legend of Genbu warrior "Uruki" who had spent a lot of his time switching back between being a man and a woman, poor blighter.(2) Kokie seemed to be composed largely of his stomach. He was large, round and Tasuki counted at least seven chins on him. He stood when he saw Subaru, but it was hard to tell if he was moving or simply rolling a bit. Around him were about fifteen large plates of Sairou's best delicacies, several jugs of exquisite juices and, Tasuki noticed with a pang, Sairou's finest sake.

"Kokie," said Subaru, sounding both pleased and oddly formal, as though she was not quite sure what to make of him.

"Subaru!" said the other Seishi, his voice sounding a bit restricted as well, though Tasuki thought that may have had something to do with his chins pressing down on his vocal cords. "What a pleasure to see you! You must excuse Shi – she had a rather singular way of dealing with people!"

"Of course," said Subaru, bowing her head in polite understanding.

Tasuki was beginning to piece together her behaviour with her stories of Kokie. Subaru had told him that although the warrior had visited Tokaki and Subaru at the doujo, they had shared a rather formal interaction, mostly because Tokaki was rather blunt about his disapproval of Kokie's inordinate consumption of anything in sight. Subaru had not worded it so, but Tasuki was beginning to understand what Tokaki might have been bothered by. As a martial arts teacher, he would value a healthy lifestyle. The several plates of finely cooked food most likely didn't fall into Tokaki's understanding of good food.

Tasuki found he was far more in favour of Kokie's way of thinking.

"% #+# straight!" said Tasuki, congenially, ignoring Subaru's look of warning. "For a while there, we thought you would have us killed!"

"Oh, no, of course not! You're a fellow Seishi and you are a fellow bandit. I mean we've always been on good terms! You scratch my back, I scratch yours and so on. Speaking of which," Kokie added, with a wide pasty smile, "do you think you could? Scratch my back, I mean?"

He was straining his neck to the left. It took Tasuki a moment to realise he was attempting to twist so he could show him his back, though with his massive form, he wasn't getting too far.

"My lower back, I mean. And also my neck and upper back? And there's this point in my middle back. Let's just say the general region of the whole back. If you could scratch it-"

"... no," said Tasuki, finally, aware that to his right, Subaru was looking somewhat smug.

Kokie cleared his throat. "I beg your pardon?" he asked, rather politely.

"No %&amp;^*# +&amp;% way," enunciated Tasuki, bewildered.

"Just a bit?"

"Nuh uh."

"Oh come on-"

"You Byakko Seishi really are completely nuts!"

"I really don't appreciate that. Never mind," Kokie said, sounding quite decisive, "I think I will have you killed after all. SHI!" he bellowed, very suddenly and very loudly, surprising everyone.

"GAH!" yelled Tasuki, frustrated. "FINE YOU CRAZY %%&amp;*%&amp;#*%&amp; #&amp;$*$&amp;%**$*#! I'LL DO IT!"

"Are you sure?" asked Kokie, with the air of polite inquiry.

Tasuki gritted his teeth. The man, really, was too much - and coming from Tasuki that meant something. "Yes."

Kokie smiled his wide pasty smile. "But you just seemed like you didn't want to-"

"Don't push it," growled Tasuki, rolling back his sleeves and stepping up onto the cushiony platform on which Kokie was lolling. For a moment he examined the surface he was meant to work on, vast, like the deserts of Sairou. Tasuki had unflattering thoughts about both in those moments. There was nothing to do but to raise a hand and scratch. Subaru continued to look rather smug as he brought down his hand.

"_Oooh_, that's lovely, _aaaah_, a little to the right, _ooooooohhhhhh_, that's amazing-"

Tasuki paused. "You know I'm not scratching your -" He looked at Subaru, whose amusement at his predicaments (the second one had to do with how to refer to the bandit leader's bits and bobs without actually referring to them) did not change that she was a thousand years old and he couldn't very well say "_jībā_" in front of her. "Your _little brother_," he finished.(3)

"You're about the same colour as your hair, Tasuki," said Subaru, not being terribly helpful. She still looked smug, as though very much wanted to say 'I told you so'. At this point, Tasuki couldn't really think of an argument.

"Anyway, there's nothing 'little' about him," announced Kokie, also sounding rather smug

"Why don't we," cut in Subaru, taking pity on Tasuki, who was about to explode, "talk about our safe passage from here to Mt. Reikaku?"

"Oh sure," said Kokie, and his whole form rumbled to the right. "Just keep scratching, right there okay... _Aaaahhhhh_..."

* * *

It was when a man dressed in a flamboyantly orange, flowy garb opened lowered the gates to the castle of Arudo that Commander Xiang realised that leaving Yuan, the treacherous Byakko Seishi Kagasuki, in charge of the state of affairs in his absence had been a bit of a mistake.

He allowed himself a moment of that human emotion commonly identified as 'annoyance' as he looked at the pair of sweaty, shaky guards. The jarring orange of their robes was offset by an even more alarming magenta sash. On their chests, in bright gold that hurt even Xiang's eyes a bit, was embroidered the emblem of the White Tiger – except that it was now an emblem of a Gold Tiger. He stepped slowly towards the guard to his left, his lip curling just a bit, disgust beginning to etch itself into his expression, not assisted by that the man was trembling like a virginal bride on her wedding night and reeked of his sweaty fear, as though he expected the Commander to execute him for wearing what appeared to be new uniform for the guards of the royal palace of Arudo.

As he looked at the exquisite embroidery and tried to estimate how much of the state coffers had been drained in his move designed rather obviously by Yuan to send a message, Xiang had to admit that executing the whole lot of them would have brought him some pleasure. But the fact of the matter was that it was not really practical, especially since Gong Gong's administrative decisions so far had consisted of razing entire fields to the ground, eviscerating entire contingents without regard for whose army they belonged to and eating an alarmingly large number of goats. Not that Xiang cared about goats, really, but right before the cold descended on the four countries was a bad time for the lands to run out of food for the masses. Not that he cared about the masses either, but a ruler needed subjects, after all.

Not to mention that it would be really embarrassing if Gong Gong, the Great and Terrible Black Dragon, began to get a pot belly.

And now, on top of everything else, he would have to contend with Yuan's bitching. He had to remind himself that killing his most useful subject was not practical either. Not yet, anyway. Not when he could still be useful.

Snarling slightly, the Commander shoved the guard out of his way and swept across the courtyard, trying to ignore the flame-like bursts of orange. This only worked until the main doors of the castle burst open and a small contingent marched out to greet him.

He found Yuan sitting in the throne room. In his seat, at that.

"Get out," he snarled at the guards in the room, viciously. "Right now."

"Ah! It's you!" said Yuan. "Like what I've done with the place?"

It appeared that Yuan had decided to get himself a new set of clothes as well, and was now decked out in an elaborate and indeed rather well-crafted set of black and greyish silver robes. Far from the dirt-plastered visage he had presented before, he looked rather elegant, albeit weather-beaten and not terribly good-looking. He was holding what looked like documents from the imperial treasury, and was reading with a certain scrutiny that left Xiang more annoyed than suspicious. He knew that Yuan was crafty and ambitious, alright; he had completely expected him to nose around into the matters of the state. But it was annoying anyway, the casual way in which he did ruffled through those sheaves of paper, with some deliberate sensuousness.

"It's hideous, not unlike your countenance," said Xiang, raising an eyebrow. "Get out of my chair."

"Oooh, so _touchy_," said Yuan, raising an eyebrow of his own as he vacated the chair. His smirk did not shift at all, however.

Xiang took a deep breath. "Need I remind you, you're actually working for me? It is not the best idea to cross me."

"But I haven't crossed you at all. Haven't I done everything you asked me to?" Yuan arched an eyebrow again, now looking rather piercingly at the Commander, allowing the heavy implication in his words to linger. "You wanted Taikyoku, and I handed it to you, on a silver platter. I did that – I stepped into the monk's mind, and stole my way around his defences. You couldn't have done that without me." Though his expression remained remarkable lax, even a bit evocative in its languor, his voice was growing hard, bitter. "And you turned me away, once more..."

"Interesting, isn't it?" said Xiang, calmly. "That you needed to access the monk's mind to find the route to Taikyoku-zan. I would have imagined you, of all Seishi, would be able to access that within yourself."

Yuan now looked a bit stricken. Xiang regarded him with interest.

"I am no longer a Seishi," he said, after a second, his flamboyance and generally obnoxious air replaced by something like fear. But it was mingled with something else altogether. Something cold and calculating, as though he was trying to see how much Xiang knew, and what he could get away with. "You know I have severed my ties with Byakko."

"Have you?" asked Xiang. "The mark on your brow tells another story, Kagasuki"

"I was born with that," shrugged the man claiming no longer to be a Byakko Seishi. "It's not like I can obliterate it – that doesn't work, as you would know, or Amefuri would no longer be carrying a thunderstorm everywhere. And it gives me the ability to help you in ways no one else can! You know this!"

"And for this you have been handsomely rewarded," pointed out Xiang, pulling on a bored voice. "Or do you need another level in the dungeons."

"Well, yes," said Yuan, bluntly. "But not as much as… you know that's not what I want," he said finally, looking almost disheartened. Xiang did not miss the piercing quality of his gaze.

"That's not all you want, you mean."

Xiang had offered the supposed former Byakko Seishi* the seventeenth level of the dungeon as payment for his services. Indeed, he wasn't wrong in saying that no one could do what he could. Stepping into people's minds and so cleverly plucking out and erasing bits of information was one of his specialities, one he had honed by conducting experiments similar to what he was doing in the dungeons. Xiang did not really know what was going on down there, and he had no real inclination to find out what grotesque mental excavations he was conducting on the people he has imprisoned.

"I don't know what you want me to prove," said Yuan. "If it wasn't for me, they would have found the monk on their first attempt. You would never have found Taikyoku. So why–"

"It was not your place to be there," said Xiang, calmly answering the question Yuan was almost unwilling to ask. Now the tall, gangly man looked at him even more coldly, as though trying to discern what Xiang was keeping from him. And Xiang was not motivated to answer. "You had no business there. And it would not bring you closer to your goal, Kagasuki."

"You mean it would have exposed _you_," spat the Seishi, "and I would have seen your other selves."

"Yes, that's exactly why," said Xiang, quite briskly. His bluntness seemed to have taken the other man aback, and he allowed the silence to linger before he spoke, his words slow and deliberate. "But right now, it's not a question of whether you need to prove yourself to me, but that I need to prove myself to the Black Dragon. You created a problem by letting the monk live; he nearly destroyed all of the Black Dragon's plans. The girl is gone. He was hoping to make an example of her."

"You _told_ me not to kill him," said Yuan, frowning. He had not begun to register what he, Xiang, was implying. A thrill of pleasure ran through the Commander.

It was a lot better when they didn't expect to be punished.

"I did say that, didn't I?" said Xiang, mildly. "Well, at any rate, the Black Dragon would like you punished."

He had the pleasure of watching the most languid and obnoxious man he had ever known flinch, and straighten up. Of watching a heavy curtain fall behind eyes, as though he was determined not to give Xiang the pleasure of knowing his words scared him. Another thrill of excitement passed through him. Yuan didn't know, or hadn't yet learned, in all the years that he had served him, that that curtain was like a sensuous veil, and the little hints of what pain did to him that came through it were far more interesting and exciting than it would have been if he had screamed right at the start of his punishment. Without the curtain, the torture may not last as long. But a brittle and fruitless pride kept the curtain in place, kept Yuan from screaming, at least at the beginning. He didn't know that drawing that scream out of him was part of the pleasure for Xiang.

Or maybe he did, thought Xiang, with another ripple of something like joy, but more like power.

"Lock the doors, won't you?" he said, smiling almost benevolently at Yuan. "Can't have people coming in."

"No," said Yuan, "I guess we can't."

The dark eyes had shutters behind them now, much to Xiang's enthrallment. It had been a long time since he had had the opportunity to do this, to create that mark of his expression on someone else. Often, his god and master did the same to him, expressing his anger or joy through torture, and he didn't mind anymore. He was beyond pain now, on the other side, where centuries of pain no longer bothered him, and he could create his own brand of agony on his own. It was not abuse, not really. Abuse was what strong, powerful men meted out to weak women who didn't know when to step back. Abuse was what the weaker women allowed themselves to be subjected to, over and over again. He was beyond all that now. This was far more exquisite. This was torture, a more intricate brand of pain.

And Yuan was an excellent canvas. He moved calmly and deliberately from door to door, locking each of them firmly and securely. The mark of his erstwhile master blazed brightly silver on the side of his forehead. That, Xiang decided, was where he would begin. They could test that theory, of whether obliterating the mark could obliterate the power.

"Well," said Yuan, coming to stand before the Commander. He raised his chin and smirked, almost smiled. "Shall we?"

Xiang raised a hand to place a finger deliberately on his Seishi mark. "Let's begin."

* * *

"Kagasuki was always a total snob," said Kokie, after the seventh course had been served.

Having lived in abject poverty and through several nights with no food, Tasuki had never thought he would ever be full to the point of bursting. But, as it turned out, there was such a thing as 'too much food'. Life taught you the weirdest lessons, he reflected, looking at the roast duck sadly.

They were sitting around a table, Kokie sitting on one side and taking up most of it, with what seemed like at least forty plates of excellently prepared food before them. Subaru sat next to Tasuki, enjoying a cup of tea rather peacefully, and Shi, Kokie's faithful watchdog woman, stood behind the latter, looking vastly uninterested in the proceedings. Tasuki wasn't sure what she was there for, really, presumably to walk around and do things when Kokie himself could not. He didn't particularly care what she was there for either. The fact was no one in this room could understand his plight, and he was altogether quite miserable about it.

"He was not a snob," said Subaru, looking amused.

"Oh, I remember enough," said Kokie, tapping his tummy, as though to indicate he stored his memory in there. Maybe that was his Seishi power, thought Tasuki, feeling quite resentful of his vast stomach that could probably accommodate a lot more food. He scowled at the duck. "I remember we found him in the northern desert and he was part of some kind of tribe-"

"Qiang," said Subaru, nodding. "They were record-keepers, mapmakers, historically speaking. It is said that all maps in the universe were made by their tribe once. But you know how tribal myths are, one part truth, seventy parts rubbish."

"They were all very proud about it too," put in Kokie, who seemed rather inclined to gossip, "very offended that we wanted to take away their precious Yuan. He was quite pleased, I think – it proved he was special, see? With his mental gymnastics and poking and prodding."

"I still don't get how the ^&amp;# that works," Tasuki grumbled.

"He could change memories. As we know," said Subaru, grimly. "He could alter thoughts and patterns, give people bad dreams."

"Completely useless in a fight!" cried Kokie, thumping his large fist on the table and spraying everyone with bits of chicken. Shi, who had been standing looking rather stoic behind him, retrieved a large cloth seemingly reserved for such purposes from a table and handed it to him. "Thank you, Shi. Now this one, this one is useful in a fight! But that," he used several words that Tasuki had been struggling very hard not to use before Subaru.

Oddly, Subaru did not give the vast bandit leader any grief about it. _Of course,_ thought Tasuki, furiously. _Damn %&amp;%&amp; Byakko Seishi and their %&amp;%&amp; preferential treatment._

Having expressed how he truly felt about Kagasuki, Kokie sighed and dipped a large steaming pork bun in a bowl of hot sauce. "Like I was saying, useless in a fight. Got me all blown up-"

"You're doing plenty of that yourself," muttered Tasuki, but very quietly.

"-couldn't handle the pressure of the fight and got knocked out early. And then it was just me and those stupid soldiers in a cave."

Despite himself, Tasuki was intrigued. He remembered Tokaki talking about how they had not had enough of Kokie to bury by the end of it. "So what happened?" he asked, trying not to sound too excited and failing. But he had plenty of reason to believe that explosions, horrible as they were, were rather cool.

"Led 'em into my caves," said Kokie, grunting. He shifted and Tasuki had the impression of a great mountain trying to adjust its seating. It seemed that the Byakko Seishi was trying to lean forward in a conspiratorial fashion. He didn't make much headway though, obstructed by his tummy. "I know 'em inside out, y'know. Had to draw 'em away from that stupid," he offered another suggestion about Kagasuki's person. "So I drew 'em into a cave. Aaaaaall the way inside. An' then..."

Subaru was looking rather sad, though Kokie only grinned, a shiny, toothy, broad smile.

"Then?!" asked Tasuki, thrilled, despite himself.

"BOOM!" said Kokie, expressively moving his hands around. He lifted an empty bowl from the table and held it tightly, glaring at it for a second before, with a spark and a soft "pop" it exploded like a tiny firecracker. Clearly pleased with himself, Kokie shifted his frame again, as though trying to lean back.

But something painful was happening inside Tasuki now. "You can blow things up on your own?" he said, after a moment, looking distinctively jealous. "With your… mind?!" He looked at his _tessen_, lying next to his unfinished food, and then at the Byakko Seishi before him.

Kokie grinned again, the huge vast toothy smile. Did you think they carved this "Belly" out of thin air?" he asked, waving his arms around to indicate his stronghold, taking rather obvious and great pleasure in Tasuki's abject horror.

"_You_ … did this...?"

"Don't look so depressed, Tasuki," said Subaru, patting him on the back. "I'm sure your powers are just as impressive. Some Seishi powers are just not as visible."

Tasuki picked up the _tessen_ and put it back into his bag.

"Kagasuki," Subaru pressed on, clearly trying to change the subject, "was one of them. You know he did die shortly after you- well, the earlier you were killed. He died near Arudo, during the battle on the river."

"Now that I don't remember." said Kokie, not seeming too traumatised about it. There was an unshakeable quality to his being, a sort ofease and relaxed acceptance of himself and everything around him. "But I did hear about it. The river burned, didn't it?"

"Yes," said Subaru, nodding. "And like you, we never recovered his body – but he seems to be only fifty years old or so, as Tasuki says. So he has to have been reborn, doesn't he?"

"Doesn't matter, does it?" asked Kokie, shrugging his vast shoulders. He accidentally knocked his hands into the table, making all the plates rattle. "We know he's alive now, and we'll be prepared. This time maybe I'll take _him_ to the center of the caves and blow him up-"

"And die in the process?" asked Subaru, looking pained. It was clear that even though she despised Kokie's manners, she was rather moved by the conversations around his death. Even the vast bandit, whose sensitivities seemed buried under his layers of flesh, registered this and smiled slightly, an almost gentle sort of smile.

"Alright," he said, "we'll just mince him and feed him to my horses, eh?"

Tasuki, however, had noticed something else about the conversation that was leaving him with a sense of dejection and alarm. "Wait. When you say '_we_'," he began, only to be cut off by a rather disconcerting grin on Kokie's face. _ #^&amp;,_ thought Tasuki. _$&amp;#* +% hell and damnation._

"I'm coming with you, of course!" roared Kokie, thumping the table with his fist, sending two plates crashing to the ground and upsetting the hot sauce. "Shi and I will come with you to Reikaku! You're going to need all the help you can get!"

* * *

Hikari stared, heaving in the thin, freezing air and struggling to form an "oy" or a "holy crap". But she was largely beyond words. Soi beckoned, gesturing for Hikari to follow her, and turned to walk seamlessly, gracefully floating above the snow.

It seemed to take Hikari almost an eternity to follow Soi to the other side of the inn, or perhaps her brain was now slowing down. Each thought reached her like a block of ice on a slow-moving Arctic river. Every now and then, Soi would turn and wait patiently for her to catch up, for which Hikari was grateful. In several long, painful minutes, they were at a small door in the side of the inn, which Soi pointed at. Clutching her coat around her, Hikari stumbled in.

Several minutes later, she started to feel her toes and fingers again, and almost wished she couldn't. It was humiliating to cry with a ghost hovering over her head as she moved her hands and feet around, but she found that the warmer she got, the more fingers and toes started to scream, and crying became the least of her worries.

She was not quite sure why she was crying, whether it was out of pain or relief that her toes and fingers were still alive and she wouldn't have to administer an amputation by herself in the middle of nowhere, or because Soi was there and that meant Eian was not far behind (which inspired both panic and relief), or because this whole affair, the whole stupid thing, was horrible. It didn't matter. The tears flowed alarmingly, without interruption. Nyan Nyan, who had learned the hard way that trying to embrace an emotional Hikari was a bad idea, settled on her shoulder in orb form and simply stayed, a quite presence, much like Soi.

It took Hikari several long moments to calm down enough to register where she was, in a small store room, surprisingly warm and by the delicious scents emanating from the vicinity, rather near the kitchen.

When the tears stopped eventually, she looked at Soi, whose face was, while still bland, lacking the derision Hikari remembered.

"How did you find me?" asked the thirteen-year-old, rubbing her face roughly. She immediately regretted this, as her skin was incredibly raw from the cold. "Ow…"

"I followed Nyan Nyan's chi signature," said Soi, in her quiet, bland manner. "Not too many places you could have gone after that. You know you haven't made a lot of progress."

Her ghostly bridal attire was casting the room with some light, so Hikari could look around a bit. "There is," she said, heading for a barrel to see if there was something to eat within, "a snow storm on. Some of us can't glide through those."

"Yes, death has its benefits," said Soi, so mildly that Hikari, who was halfway through rummaging through the second barrel, had to look up to check if she was joking. With Soi, though, it was hard to tell.

A second later, driven by her grumbling stomach, she went back to rummaging. She was having some rather vivid thoughts about pork buns and steaming bowls of soup, though the barrels has so far yielded nothing but straw and the occasional apple core. Her stomach rumbled loudly as her fingers ached, and Hikari found that in the face of pure hunger she possessed a remarkable calm and a singular sort of focus that could handle different body parts trying to communicate in contrary and strange ways with her.

"You know you're being followed, don't you?" asked Soi, in the same tone.

Hikari looked up and, unable to conjure an appropriately snarky response, just shrugged. "Yes," she said.

"And not merely by Eian?"

Hikari thought of the blind little girl somewhere out there in the howling wind, and suddenly felt the chill in her bones again. "Yes," she said. "I know. I saw her."

"And where are you going?" asked Soi, now looking at her very narrowly.

Hikari paused, not sure if she wanted to respond. But then, the whole reason she was running away from people was because she wanted no one to die for her. Soi, of course, was already dead. It did come with some benefits, it seemed. "I'm going... north," said Hikari, slowly. "I don't know where my internal cosmic hound nose is leading me right now. We... check from time to time," she added, shrugging towards the floating pink orb that was Nyan Nyan, who seemed to glow with some joy at this acknowledgement.

"Eian is not far, you know," said Soi. "He would be useful. He could get a room, some hot food, protect you-"

"I'm fine," said Hikari, shortly, recognising that this, after hysterically sobbing over her toes, was a bit of an exaggeration. "_We're_ fine. Nyan Nyan can protect me."

"She is not a warrior. She is little but a creature of kindness." Now Soi did sound rather derisive. "She can't wield a sword, or kill someone."

"Well. Good," said Hikari, now straightening up and looking at Soi rather directly. "I don't want her to. No one else needs to die."

"You're being painfully naive again," said Soi, though she did not sound bothered, "if you believe this will end without bloodshed and war-"

"It could, if I find the Shinzaho-"

"Some of which are with Eian," said Soi, smoothly. "Exactly what are you intending to do without them...?"

"Can you just-?" Hikari cut herself off, frustrated. She was aware that this was an argument she would lose. Not to mention, the idea of having along with her someone who could get her hot food and a bed to sleep was more terribly tempting than she could express. It had been a day of trials and temptations to give in and take the easy way out. It was easy for her to pretend she wasn't terrified, even when she was howling like a two-year-old. But to resist repeatedly that which she craved most – sanctuary, safety, support – was excruciating.

"Why are you dressed like that?" she demanded, abruptly changing the topic. "Like a bride? Is that connected with your Seishi power?"

"I can control lightning," began Soi.

"Great, you and Amefuri are one wind-wielding Seishi short of a hurricane."

"Uruki never chose to be reborn."

This sounded as though this was meant to be informative. "Right," Hikari accepted.

"Also, I can also manipulate another person's chi with sexual intercourse. It's trickier now when I'm dead, but a few well-placed wet dr-"

"Ew," said Hikari. "Please stop."

"But that's not why I am dressed like this." Soi paused for a few moments, looking as though she herself was trying to work the answer to that question out. Eventually she said, "It was a dream I couldn't have in life, I suppose." For the first time in Hikari's presence, she frowned just a little.

"Who did you want to marry?" asked Hikari, intrigued.

"Someone who would have been very bad for me," said Soi, after a moment's consideration. "It was confusing – my dreams were clearer in death too, I think."

Something occurred to Hikari suddenly at Soi's words, something she hadn't considered before. "Is it...?" she began, and then paused. The question sounded almost silly in her mind, childish and rather plaintive. Soi looked at her narrowly again, and Hikari cleared her throat, to make it sound more like an academic inquiry. "Is it painful? Dying, I mean?"

The ghost bride considered her. There was a look in her eyes, one Hikari could not quite understand. As though she was sizing her up to see how much she could stand. If she was too much of a child to be told the truth. Hikari straightened her back and looked at Soi almost defiantly, her chin sticking out just a bit, thinking that if anything was clear now it was that there was no need to protect her innocence at this point. But in the next moment, Soi's expression shifted, and Hikari suddenly knew that she would not lie to her. Whatever test it was, she had passed it.

"Every death is different," said Soi. "I do not know if Yuuki Miaka suffered."

A second passed before Hikari registered that it was difficult, really painful, to hear that, and she lowered her eyes. "Oh," she said, softly. "Right."

In the silence that settled on them, Hikari had a sudden, intense sense of infinite distance, a horizon too far to reach. There was a vastness around her that had nothing to do with the frozen, endless mountains that seemed to stretch out northwards, where her path led her. In those moments, Hikari wanted, more than ever, to have someone to traverse through the wild, frozen north with. Soi being there was unendingly terrifying in its temptation. Nyan Nyan was company, but there was something about human touch and presence that was not quantifiable.

"Tell me something," said Hikari, finally looking up. "He does comb his stupid hair everyday, doesn't he? That git."

"Tomo has decided to torture him by hiding the comb," said Soi, and the corner of her mouth twitched a little. "So not anymore, but yes, he did."

For the first time in weeks, Hikari smiled. It felt rather strange, and she stopped immediately.

"He is not far behind, though the snowstorm will slow him down, as it has you," continued Soi. Hikari was reminded of her school counsellor, Miss Yuki, who abided by the idea that the solution to a problem had to come from within the problematic child herself, but did everything she could to direct the latter to the solution she would have preferred.

"Do you know what lies ahead?" asked Hikari, changing tactics, as she had with Miss Yuki. "Is there a village anywhere around?"

Soi did not move or change expression, but Hikari could almost sense her shrugging. "I don't know."

It took Hikari another minute or so to muster up the courage to ask her what she did next. She had never been good at asking for help, which was half the reason she had turned up at Miss Yuki's office as often as she had. But something about Soi's words had chilled her. Not acknowledging the truth of her mission had led to her mother's death. And Soi, as the ghost had pointed out, was dead. So, she took a deep breath. "Can you find out?" she asked, looking at the ghostly bride. "Without telling Eian?"

Soi's eyes seemed to grow more opaque as she studied Hikari again. It took a whole minute, by the end of which Hikari was beginning to consider going back to the barrels to look for food, but Soi eventually nodded. "I can," she said. "But you will need help, eventually, help that is more corporeal than me."

"I know," said Hikari, both intensely relieved and oddly panicked at the same time, perhaps because it was the first time she had acknowledged that would need help. More corporeal help, as Soi put it "Just... not yet, okay?"

It was an eternity before Soi nodded. An absurd, irrational part of Hikari held onto the moment in great panic and unease until she did. But even after that, she was uneasy.

Something had budged, shifted and changed the precariously balanced paradigm of isolation she was building. A part of her could suddenly breathe, knowing she had one more supporter with her, one who could actually fight, which was admittedly rather useful in their situation. Though this did not, of course, solve all her problems. As Soi confirmed later, when Hikari asked, that she could not bring her hot soup; death did have its limitations. On the other hand, as the wall shifted and support came to her from the other side, she wondered how much of the darkness she was sure she was heading for would reach for others she left behind.

That night, after a small and entirely unsatisfying meal of a couple of apples and some stale buns, Hikari slept. She dreamt of penetrating darkness, slimy and slow moving, but relentless in its search for weak spots and breaches in the wall she had so carefully built.

* * *

**_Author's Notes:_** Thanks to **MercuryMoon** for her constant support! It's been a week of illness and generally feeling foul and it's been really nice to have support about the story and as a friend in general.

**_Footnotes:_**

1\. 'Shi' – Shi is based on a character my friend wrote a very long time back, back when we were dorkily RPing Fushigi Yuugi stories. Back then she was Xee which of course not a Chinese name. Shi is not a name either, as far as I know, but a word which can (depending on the inflection) mean "death", "poetry" or "man" – hence Tasuki being in idiot.

2\. Genbu Seishi Uruki's Seishi mark 'Nu' means 'girl' – thus the comment on the literal interpretation of his Seishi mark, as he would turn into a woman to channel the wind.

3\. "Jiba" is an impolite way of referring to a man's bits and bobs. "Little brother" is the same.

**Hope you've enjoyed this story so far! Let me know in a review!**

_Standard disclaimers apply!_


	4. 03 House of Mirrors

**Chapter Three**

**House of Mirrors**

* * *

_I was cold in a dream_  
_somewhere close to the surface_  
_Between the ice and the stream_  
_there is three inches of air_  
_So I swam towards the light_  
_I let my breath get there first_  
_When I opened my eyes_  
_I saw myself in the mirror_

~ Bright Eyes ~

* * *

The next morning she was awakened by a ghostly feather being stuck up her nose. Rather absurdly, Hikari sneezed. Then, she cranked open an eye and glared furiously at Tomo's painted, grinning face.

"Rise and shine, my little runaway!" he announced, in a sing-song tone that didn't quite serve to soothe her nerves, suddenly shot to wakefulness. "The inn is quiet, the storm has died, and if you would like to sneak out before Eian gets here, now would be a really good time!"

This cut through the fog of loathing with which she was regarding Tomo. Hikari straightened up. "What?!" she demanded. "Soi said she wouldn't tell him!"

"Well, she didn't," said Tomo, grinning. "She told _me_. Isn't that lucky?"

"If by 'lucky' you mean really bloody annoying..."

"Oh now, don't be like that," said Tomo, looking like he was just about resisting the urge to bat his eyelids. "I come bearing the gift of information. Soi told me to tell you she's off scouting the country to find out what's going on. The nearest village is a mile away, but there are soldiers all around. You need to avoid that, and there's another village a few miles further north. Of course, I think you should wait here for Eian – you both look terribly depressed and maybe a little company would-"

"No," said Hikari, shortly. "I'm leaving."

"I can make it worth your while. A happy illusion of a warm fire," said Tomo, his drawling voice now soft.

"No," said Hikari again. She was already on her feet, swaying just a little as she stood, sleep reaching for her with determined hands.

"You could see your mother again," said Tomo, his eyes gleaming.

Hikari found, for a second, that she could not quite speak. It was cruel, and unnecessary, and she knew he was only doing it to goad her into reacting. The truth was she couldn't react to the callously thrown image, not because she had no reactions, but because she was torn and caught somewhere between rage and longing. He must have seen it, because he laughed, sounding thrilled by his own callousness.

"Shut up," she said, shortly, shocked by the casual insensitivity of the words that had been thrown at her.

Her words, however, only seemed to fuel is amusement. "Well, you've got to get going, then!" he said, still snickering.

Then, he was gone, suddenly and silently, leaving behind an echo of his cruel laughter and horrible temptation.

It took Hikari a moment to regain her balance, a moment in which she felt a wave of black, raging hatred rise like bile in her throat. "NyanNyan?" she said, after a moment of fighting down the darkness surging inside her. She suddenly wanted to make sure the little girl was around; Nyan Nyan was the logical counter to Tomo's cruelty and her own rage.

"Hai!" said Nyan Nyan, popping out of the barrel and coming to snuggle into Hikari's pocket. Even the perennially cheerful little girl seemed subdued.

Hikari pulled her coat tighter around herself and headed towards the door leading outside, when the horrifying experience of the night returned to her. She could almost feel her fingers and toes shrinking in alarm. "I need another coat," she said, blandly, turning around abruptly and headed to the door leading to the kitchen. Logic. Logic would see her through. She was cold and so she needed another coat. She was sad and on the verge of letting through a floodgate of anger and grief, and focusing on Doing Things and Putting One Foot Before Another would fix that.

The door to the kitchen was locked, but before Hikari could begin to hurl herself at the it, Nyan Nyan floated through to the other side. A moment later, they heard a bolt unlock and the door swung open.

"Kowaiineechan need warm," said Nyan Nyan, popping back into Hikari's pocket as Hikari struggled against the surge of sudden warmth and affection. It felt weird, almost wrong in a way, to be feeling anything but blank, vengeful or sad, to smile about small things when something so big and horrible had happened. Thinking of the big and horrible thing killed her momentary sense of joy, and she stepped into the kitchen.

Two men – the cooks, Hikari assumed – were snuggled blissfully into a blanket by the fire in a position of enviable snuggliness. The larger of the two, whose snores were more like notes from a broken whistle, had his nose lodged firmly in what was indubitably a rather smelly armpit belonging to his colleague, whose snores were sonorous, booming. Reminded of her sleepless night in the woods, Hikari sent several crudely worded, loathsome thoughts towards Tomo. She crept past the two men, ignoring an absurd desire to sleep in a smelly armpit next to a fire for a while.

Passing through into the large restaurant area, she looked around. There were two men at the bar, both passed out, and both with coats hanging on the backs of their chairs. With a total absence of scruples, Hikari removed the coat from the chair of the smaller-looking unconscious man, and pulled it on. It was significantly warmer than her own coat.

It was also a lot longer.

Turning around on the tips of her toes, Hikari tripped solidly over the coat and landed onto a table, falling over, several chairs fell on top of her with an almighty crash.

Several things happened all at once, and rather tumultously, though Hikari did not see so much as guess at what was going on from her position under the several chairs. A similar crash in the vicinity told her that the larger of the two patrons at the bar had crashed off his seat as well and was now struggling with furniture problems of his own. Someone in the kitchen cursed, following by two identical yells of horror. And what sounded like a small hoard of elephants came running down the stairs.

Hikari was twisting and turning in a desperate attempt to disentangle herself from the giant coat and the legs of all the chairs. She found herself face down on the ground and kneeling a little, in what was a wholly futile attempt to burst through the chair as she stood, when someone grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and hauled her to her feet.

A garble of voice greeted her.

"YOU! WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?"

"What happened?!"

"What's wrong with the chairs!?"

"I'm so sorry Hideki! I didn't mean to snuggle your armpit-"

"_Shut up Aoki_!" growled the unfortunate Hideki.

"Oy," said the patron at the bar, whose breath was palpable even several feet away. He was swaying stupidly, looking around as though trying to put two and two together. For a moment Hikari thought she would get away with it; the man didn't look smart enough to string three syllables together to say 'Dorobou!' But in the next instant, his eyes widened and he turned to point, looking almost a bit hurt, at Hikari. "THIEF! HE'S GOT MY COAT!"

"THIEF!" bellowed the man holding her by the scruff of her neck, who looked and smelled better than the rest, and had an expression of self-importance and glee on his face that indicated he probably owned the joint. He also appeared to have been the one whose descent to the restaurant had sounded like a piano falling down the stairs. "A RATTY THIEF!"

He shook her viciously so she could all but hear her bones rattling in her body. "DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU COULD GET AWAY WITH-"

But he had stopped, and Hikari, who felt like she had escaped the clutches of a rather determined earthquake, could not quite see why. She also could not see why Nyan Nyan wasn't dragging her out of this mess. But then she realised she had bigger problems. Her hood had fallen backwards and they could now see her hair, which, tied back though it was, offered them a suggestion.

"You a _girl_?!" demanded the innkeep, looking altogether suspicious.

Hikari looked around, her mouth open in speechless surprise. It appeared that they were all waiting for confirmation.

"I... um," said Hikari, preparing to deny all allegations from thievery to femininity with great vehemence. But the part of her that was thoroughly sick of medieval attitudes towards women (even if she was stuck in a medieval period, damn it) bristled and she changed tactics. "Look, this is a bit unfair! Most of you have hair longer than I do! Are _you_ a girl?!" she asked of the tall, grumpy looking cook, who was standing with his hands firmly lodged in his armpits as though he was afraid his plumper and pink-faced colleague would exploit them again.

"No!" he growled, sounding quite offended. Perhaps, on this particular morning, this was a sensitive subject.

"SEE?!" yelled Hikari.

"Yes. Well. YOU ARE!" yelled the innkeeper, sounding outraged.

"Of course, but is that _really_ the point?" _Where the hell is Nyan Nyan?_ she thought furiously. "Maybe you should just let me go, no harm no foul, eh?"

The innkeeper seemed almost baffled. Hikari had the impression that at a different time of day and with more sleep in their system, these men would have killed her by now, or thrown her into the fire, or raped her, or some sort of confused combination of those horrible prospects. But for now he ogled at her. Hikari took the opportunity to say, "Nyan Nyan?" which bought her another second of confusion from the five men crowded around her. As the pink orb peeked out, Hikari lost her temper entirely.

"WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU WAITING FOR, YOU TOTAL MUG! _LET'S GO_!"

The Nyan Nyan orb turned bright, furiously red. "KOWAIINEECHAN NO ASK!" she yelled, sounding quite angry for a tiny girl made out of kittens, before yanking Hikari into the little portal of space and time and speed.

Hikari had a brief impression of five men doing their best impressions of goldfish, and then they were gone.

They emerged several feet over the ground. Hikari had a second to recognise this before, with a yell of alarm, she landed none too softly on freshly fallen snow on the forest floor. It appeared that Nyan Nyan had decided to drop her on her behind. She distantly registered a yell of "KOWAIINEECHAN RUDE!", as she sat up furiously.

"What was that for?!" she howled, frustrated. "And, Kowaiineechan no ask!?" She realised suddenly that she was not yelling at anyone in particular, and looked around hurriedly for Nyan Nyan. In another situation, she would have registered how comical she looked, twisting and turning in her spot on the forest floor, but as of now, she was preoccupied with wanting to shake Nyan Nyan until her teeth rattled. As it happened, she was yelling at the forest in general, with no Nyan Nyan in sight. "Kowaiineechan no ask?! Are you kidding me?! Of all the stupid, moronic, inconsiderate- _where are you_!?" she finally exploded, as Nyan Nyan eluded her. "This is not mature, you know-"

Then, she paused. She had caught sight of something – someone – in her twisting and turning. Someone too tall to be Nyan Nyan and not shiny enough to be Eian. A stranger. To whom she probably seemed totally off her rocker. Cursing, Hikari turned.

Before her stood an adolescent boy, dressed in holding a bow and arrow in his hands and looking at her with mild interest. Not with surprise, though, she noted. He seemed as though he was completely unrattled by the abrupt appearance of a strange urchin-like girl in the forest. He also wasn't, from what she could make out, a soldier. As panic faded, awkwardness dawned.

"Um," said Hikari, quite rattled herself. "Um. Hi?"

"Um hi," mimicked the boy, drawing an arrow, as Hikari's stomach plummeted. "Who are you?"

"I'm no one," said Hikari, rather quickly, and realised, as he took aim, that she had given him plenty of reason to be suspicious. Where on earth was Nyan Nyan? "I mean I am ... someone. I'm just not... don't worry about me, I'm not going to hurt you-"

"I know," said the boy, raising his chin and looking at her with just a touch of arrogance. "I'll kill you if you try."

He could not have been older than fifteen, but there was something about him, an air of furious precision that reminded her a little of Amefuri and left her without a doubt that if he let loose his arrow, it would find its way to her heart. "I mean I'm – I'm not going to be a bother, I'm not going to steal or hurt or whatever, I just need to – you can just pretend I wasn't here, right?"

"I don't think so. Start talking," snapped the boy, rather aggressively. "Who are you? Where did you come from? And why are you shouting at the tree?"

"I—I'm just..."

An arrow embedded itself beside her head, extracting a squeak. "Damn! Sorry! I mean, I'm not – will you please not do that again! I'm not doing you any harm!"

"You," the boy glared, "are trespassing. This is our land."

"Well I didn't know that, I'm sorry, I'll just be off—"

"I don't think so," said the boy again, drawing another arrow.

Hikari could only stare, her heart pounding and her ear tingling from the sound of the arrow. The boy looked rather nasty, a bit like a bully, though not as stupid as most bullies Hikari had experienced. Takagi Keiji, their class bully, would happily pull the wings off a dragonfly, but he was just as easily distracted by a pastry. This boy seemed very clear about his agenda, and not likely to be distracted by much. His dark eyes bored into her, and he had a nasty smirk on his face that left her convinced he would kill her and not bat an eyelid about it.

"My name is Hikari," she said, seeing no other way out. She didn't dare call out for Nyan Nyan, who in any case seemed to have decided to abandon her entirely. "I'm... travelling. I was with a friend, but she seems to have left, and... that's why I was yelling at the tree. I thought the tree was my friend. I mean that she was here, somewhere, but, well, she... isn't," she finished, rather lamely.

She knew even before she stopped that he did not believe it. He glared at her for a long moment, considering her from head to toe. Hikari had the wild idea that he was trying to decide where ony her person to shoot her. Maybe he would shoot her foot and get her to talk. She was about to offer him a great deal of panicky babble as a dissuasion tactic when he turned his head slightly to the right, keeping his eyes firmly on her, to yell something that sounded like, "_HIKITSU_!"

* * *

The village of Qingmu was small, with several rows of stone huts all set around a clearing in the center. Snuggled deeply within the forest, it was an excellent cover from inquisitive eyes. This was where Shiori and her followers had set up camp, where Donghai had brought them despite Amefuri's strongly, if succinctly, worded objections.

Donghai told his comrades that they were his cousins, equally committed to Shiori's cause, though even Reishun, who was usually quite trusting and expected others to be the same, didn't believe anyone bought that. So, while they waited for more news and information, they kept a low profile, doing what they were told and keeping their heads down.

On the plus side, this was easy. They were put to work the moment they arrived. Everything at this camp was quite structured. The women seemed to have their place, weaving and cooking (now that the harvest was done), the men who went out to fight or build or hunt large animals, children who were meant to take care of the cows and pigs and gather berries or kill smaller animals. The houses seemed to be divided according to rank, as a result of which Reishun and Amefuri slept in the stables with the horses. Food was rationed rather carefully, much like everything else. Reishun couldn't help but wonder if most people gravitated towards Shiori because of how much saner her camp seemed to be, in a country that was otherwise quite crazy.

Given Reishun's propensity to get queasy at the slightest provocation or stress, they had placed them both far away from the food, with the old women who did most of the weaving. It was quite a relaxing and rewarding experience for Reishun, even with everything else that was going on. For one, the old women left them to themselves. Even though the nausea did not entirely go away and the nightmares became significantly worse, assisted by the howling of the wolves outside the village walls, this gave her some much needed time to rest and think, something she wouldn't have believed was possible in the midst of a crisis.

She was just a little too pleased to learn that yarn, much like manners and bandaging wounds, flummoxed Amefuri completely. The Byakko Seishi spent most of her time cursing and trying to find a way to go hunt with the men. Reishun found the gender-based division of labour quite infuriating too – especially considering the leader of the village was a woman, for Suzaku's sake – but Amefuri's expressions and battle with yarn made it rather worthwhile.

At night, they joined everyone else at the bonfire for a collective, communal dinner. This was a cheerful affair. By the light of the fire, people let loose, and the air was filled with laughter and drunken singing. This generally made Amefuri quite uncomfortable, but even the Byakko warrior's dampness couldn't keep the fire from blazing, for which Reishun was glad.

Dinner was also ideal for making their inquiries. Reishun and Amefuri learned quickly about the political and military structure of the camp. Much like everything else in the camp, these roles too were very organised. Shiori was consistently surrounded by a group of burly men, mostly leaders tribes, bands and villages that had pledged their allegiance to her cause, and her own personal contingent of confidants, all very tall and stoic and some rather good looking.

Well, one, anyway. Nausea didn't mean Reishun didn't have eyes.

Shiori's close confidants were Generals, who commanded over the smaller contingents formed by the tribes, bands and villagers. Every evening, most of these leaders huddled together in a group and talked over schemes and plans, trying to find ways to ally with others, draw over supporters from other camps. Reishun caught Amefuri watching them with infinite resentment, as though she wanted to throw several balls of yarn at them.

Even so, the whole thing made Reishun nervous; it seemed as though Kutou's strife was bubbling just under the surface and getting ready to explode all over. It was also unnerving to find that sometimes some of these leaders (well, those of them who were rather good looking) were looking over towards them, watching the two of them as carefully as they watched them. But for the most of it, this was all the interaction they had with them.

True to his word, Donghai brought Reishun and Amefuri news from the enemy "camp", a generous term for the scattered bunch of marauders, bandits, erstwhile noblemen and similar thugs who seemed to support the claims of the former Emperor's second cousin's son, Takahiro. They seemed to recruit anyone they could find and execute anyone who seemed even a little likely to disagree.

Much to Reishun's alarm, Donghai seemed to be covered in more bruises each time he came to visit them, always in the dead of the night, making surprisingly little noise for such a large man. This, he assured her, was not because they suspected him of spying. In fact, they had had completely believed his story, partly because he was rather convincing and they were in good spirits, but also because the sight of him, naked and unarmed, claiming to want to switch allegiances, was just so ridiculous that it couldn't be anything but true.

His bruises had appeared now because given his stature and prowess with axes and spears (Reishun had a vivid recollection of him swinging his axe around in circles as a defense against the creepy snake commander's phantom army), he had been chosen to train young recruits. Seemingly, he did this by allowing said recruits to beat him up.

"Well, you've got to give them some sort of hope," he said, almost fondly, touching the shiner on his left eye gingerly. "They take such heart every time they land a punch!"

"That doesn't mean you need to let them beat you up!" said Reishun, perplexed.

But Donghai wouldn't budge on this, full of affection for his 'little scoundrels'.

He was also usually full of news, even if it was not immediately relevant to their quest. For instance, he had plenty to offer about his Takahiro's followers were beginning to speak of an independent rebellion against him. Apparently the bandit leaders wanted more power and respect, and would rather risk their chances against one another in a fight for dominance than submit to Takahiro. The latter was haughty, proud and quite full of himself, even though his mysterious hold on the tribes had, it seemed, vanished a couple of weeks back – around the time that the horrible commander had kidnapped Hikari and most of the snakes in the forest had vanished.

"Obviously it was that snake thing… man person," said Donghai, wisely. "I've got to get those kids out before that happens. Maybe I can bring them here. At least Shiori doesn't execute people for no reason."

"Not that we know of," said Amefuri, flatly, causing Reishun to roll her eyes. "This might be the better of two evils, yes."

"There's nothing yet about a spy passing through here from Sairou. Or maybe there is," he added, rubbing his head vigorously so his hair stuck out comically all over, "but there have been so many people coming from and going to Sairou. They're selling us their weapons, see?"

Amefuri, who was generally silent when Donghai came around, seemingly unwilling to lower herself to speak to the man, looked around and leaned in, lowering her voice. "Have you thought about how Takahiro is paying for the weapons? It's not like there's a lot of money these days."

Donghai looked alarmed, though not quite as much as Reishun did. He had not made the connection between his band of "little scoundrels" and Amefuri's implications about payments. Before he could, Reishun cleared her throat. "Probably ransacked the royal reserves, eh? All that banditry!" she said throwing a dark look at Amefuri.

The thunder growled in response.

All in all, they learned more from the stories some of the older women told around the campfire than from Donghai's clumsy attempts at espionage. Some of these stories seemed immediately connected with their quest, like the one about the origins of the universe of the four gods. On their seventh night there, Minori-Obaasan, the oldest and most wrinkled of what Reishun had taken to fondly calling the Obaasan Quartet told her onlookers a tale that Reishun had grown up hearing.

_The lands remembered an ancient, noble and beautiful empress who had reigned for almost five thousand years, many centuries in the past. So gentle and prosperous was her reign that the gods in Heaven invited her to become a part of their fold once her time was through. _

_But many demons and monsters, who were waiting to become gods as well, were very resentful about this. They conspired with her top general to wreak havoc on the world in the last few years of her reign. _

_And so her armies turned against her people, the rivers over flooding, the deserts suffering from draughts, and fire catching through the forests. _

_The empress was furious and invoked the gods to help her, but there was no way for them to intervene with what happened on Earth. So, she employed her four most trusted generals to fend off the army of monsters and demons while she built a mountain from earth, reeds, stone and rope, so tall that it could connect Heaven with Earth. Then, the gods descended and restored to the Earth._

_Having learned that even the gods had limitations, she refused to join the ranks of the gods in Heaven. Instead, she asked that her four trusted friends be made gods, one to preside over a quadrant of her lands, while she lived in at the center on the mountain she had built, to ensure that the order of the world remained in balance._

"That's kind of awesome," Reishun told Amefuri later, struggling to be cheerful in the face of the gloominess Amefuri seemed to cast on the day. "The story of Taiitsukun!"

"If it's true," said Amefuri, slowly, "the thing that's supposed to keep the world in balance collapsed not too long ago."

Reishun gave up.

* * *

Once his stomach started to feel a little more fortified with some truly exquisite soup, Chiriko – who firmly refused to give him another name – told him that most of the villages along the coast had been attacked over the last few months, long before the Black Dragon had risen. The soldiers from Sairou had taken over the coast so swiftly and systematically that no one really saw it coming.

"No one but me, of course," said the boy, in a lazy tone that Taka guessed was meant to belie his attachment to the village and rage about its fate. "I can see these things coming a mile off. Though, I have to admit, I only became aware of it two days before they soldiers reached us, and by that time it was too late. I tried to get everyone to stick it out and fight, but they left – the cowards," he added, now sounding bitter. But the next moment he had stuck his nose up in the air again. "Well, one can't expect more from these peasants," he said, with remarkable pride for someone wearing rags and covered in dirt.

Taka, who had just put a dollop of soup in his mouth, did not comment on this.

"So I built this," he continued, chattily. Taka blinked, looking up to realise the boy was pointing at what he had dismissed as a pile of wood, ropes, fishing nets and other things. As he looked at it more closely now, Taka realised there was a kind of method to the madness here. "Oh, it's a rudimentary kind of machine—"

Chiriko glared. "Rudimentary is that thing you call a brain," he snapped, getting up before Taka could point out that this was really rude, and completely contrary to the kind of Chiriko he remembered. Brainy and committed to the cause alright, but with a kind of aggressive fervor Taka didn't associate with the cute, cuddly, almost Nyan Nyan like Seishi of the past. Things, he reminded himself, with a dull stab of misery, change

As Chiriko started to push and pull various parts of the machine, sounds started to echo somewhat disjointedly from the house next door. And, Taka realised, the house beyond that, and the house beyond that. It took him a moment to register it, because even with how brilliant Chiriko had been in the past, this was astonishing: but the thing stretched into the village, from building to building.

"You built this?" Taka asked, now awed into being a a little unnecessary. But the boy didn't seem to mind. He looked pleased, if anything, to show off what he had built to Taka.

"Yeah, see? I put whatever I want to throw at my enemies here," he picked up his bowl, emptying its contents into the cauldron, and placed it into what looked like a large spatula, " pull this," he pulled, "and push that," he shoved, "to control where it goes, and... there!" he released a lever. Taka watched the bowl hurtle out of the house along a plank to the next building, where something snapped into place to whack the bowl out towards the street. "It was very basic back when the soldiers came, I've been improving it since then. But it worked well enough! Well, that and they realised everyone had fled," he added, as an afterthought. "They tried to come and find me, but I fended them off. By myself!" he finished, looking proud and expectant.

Taka turned to look at him, finally. "You built this," he stated, now impressed.

"I had to do it all alone too, but someone had to defend the space. We can't have soldiers from Sairou taking over everything, can we?!" finished Chiriko, looking so fierce that Taka had no doubt he had stood up against a small battalion of soldiers all by himself.

That was another thing he seemed to have in common with his prior incarnation: a single minded sort of pride and a pigheaded unwillingness to back down. Taka could just about imagine the fragile looking boy standing defiantly against the whole contingent in a village no one else was willing to defend.

"Right," he said, determinedly trying not to think of where this sort of thinking had landed Chiriko. "And you've been here alone since then...?"

"No," said the boy, quickly, almost defensively. As Taka raised an eyebrow, he cleared his throat. "I have a cat."

Taka's other eyebrow joined the first. "Where is it?"

"Well, he drops in every now and again," said Chiriko, looking rather annoyed, as though Taka had touched a nerve. It must have been quite lonely for him, defending the village by himself. Taka almost started to ask why he hadn't left to find his community, but thought better of it. Clearly, he had nowhere else to go.

"Right," he said, tactfully, making up his mind. Chiriko, severely annoying though he was, was also brilliant. Not to mention he was a lone kid in the middle of a village in the middle of a war. Taka wasn't leaving him alone. "Well, I'm going to go on to look for Mitsukake. Would you like to join me?"

Chiriko snorted. "Oh really?" he asked, not a little derisively. "And how do you plan on starting?"

"Well," said Taka, who had caught the eager gleam of knowledge in the boy's eyes. "That's why it would be good to have you around. You could help me, couldn't you?"

It worked, of course. Brilliant though the boy was, he was still nine. Taka's one gift as a parent had been that he could outsmart his nine-year-old, even if that had ceased to help him once she'd turned ten.

His daughter had taught him that gleam meant she knew something he didn't, and gently skirting around it would be enough to wheedle it out of her. It worked like a charm on Chiriko.

"I could make an educated guess," he said, sounding very academic and serious.

Taka withheld a grin and nodded solemnly.

* * *

Reishun looked forward the most to Hiromi-Obaasan's stories. Only mildly less wrinkled than Minori-Obaasan, but much better dressed and careful about her looks, Old Hiromi told the most incredible love stories, far more like the tales that had fed Reishun's subconscious with ideas of brave heroes who rescued beautiful maidens, and never, ever told them they didn't love them in the same way, damn it.

When Hiromi told stories, a large number of gathered around. This, according to Amefuri, was the only reason they needed to attend the gatherings, though Reishun needed no convincing. She leaned forward, listening intently, while Amefuri busied herself with being generally overcast and irritable.

On this eighth night at Qingmu village, Hiromi told them a story about a young woman, descended from the gods.

_Two deities once fell in love and conceived a child. Unfortunately, a she-demon was terribly jealous of the deities and cursed their child with beauty so dazzling that no honest man could stand to look at her. Indeed, their daughter grew to be a woman possessed with an incredible and ethereal beauty, bright and luminescent- _

Thunder rumbled. Reishun could almost feel Amefuri rolling her eyes.

_\- such that no honest man could stand to look at her for too long, and only dishonest, heartless and cruel men ventured close to her. Her parents, terribly afraid for her wellbeing, locked her up in a castle where she was tended to by a humpbacked nurse. _

_Slowly, she withdrew into her own shell, and emerged only for three nights in a year, during the Harvest Festival celebrated in the northern lands, where the bonfires burned merrily for three long days and nights, and where it was customary for people to put on masks and dance. Here, she could be free and dance and laugh as she pleased._

_It was here that she fell in love with a noble and honest man. During the festival, they shared many dances and fell in love over the three days, secretly marrying one another. But as the festival ended, she grew terrified that he would leave her upon seeing her face. And so, in the small hours of the morning after the last of the bonfires has dwindled to a faint red glow, she crept away and left her lover sleeping alone on the grass, returning to her parents' abode in the heavens._

_For a whole year she dwelled there alone, consumed by her own loneliness and fear, angry and resentful that the darkness that lived in her could not dwindle her physical luminescence -_

Amefuri snorted and Reishun, who was listening intently and beginning to feel rather dramatic and sad herself, elbowed her in the ribs, causing the former to double over.

"Oh, sorry!" said Reishun, hurriedly casting about to make sure no one had noticed that a small elbow nudge from her had almost snapped her friend's rib. But everyone was too engrossed in the story.

_\- Noticing how lonely and depressed she was, her parents arranged a marriage for her with the son of another god. As he was the son of a god, he was not a man, and so the curse would not apply to him. In fact, he himself was said to be as luminescent as the sun. But neither the young woman nor her match were happy, and soon after they were married the girl boarded herself up in a room and spent the year as far away from her husband as she could. She was pining for her lover from the festival. _

_Finally, a whole year had passed and it was time for the festival once more. Donning the ugly coarse clothing of a peasant and a mask made of straw and earth, the beautiful woman descended. She refused to participate, but could not bring herself to stay away from the laughter, the sounds of life and love, people happy together; she was only there to seek out her lover. _

_This time it was he who found her as she sat there by the edge of the festivities, recognising her by her posture and her refusal to join in the festivities. He begged her to speak to him and let him look upon her face, if only once. She agreed, if only he promised to let her leave immediately thereafter. _

_They walked into the forest, away from the festivities, and she took off her mask. And immediately the forest was cast in a blue glow, bright as the moon—_

Amefuri was beginning to make noises of disgust. Reishun turned her back towards her, annoyed, and listened.

_She explained that this was why they could never be together, because it was her curse to be too bright for any man to bear—_

"Not to mention she was married," pointed out Amefuri, but very quietly.

_But as she turned to walk away, the man whipped off his own mask to reveal a bright face comparable to the sun. It was her husband, the one she had been forced to marry by her parents and the one she had married by herself the year before. Happy, they both glowed and held one another, returning to their home to live happily ever after. _

Reishun was moved. She couldn't have said why, but it lit up something inside her that had been extinguished when Eian had left. The light of hope, not to mention fantasy and romance. But the thunder rolled and grumbled, reflecting Amefuri's own grumpiness, and Reishun found herself growing progressively more defensive and irritated, even though the woman was not saying anything.

"What is it that's disturbing you so much?" snapped Reishun, as they headed back to the stabled, when the woman's silence, juxtaposed with the grumbling clouds, became too much to bear. "Is it that they were happy because they found each other? Why can't you understand these things?!"

"Really doesn't matter," shrugged Amefuri, shaking her head.

"No," said Reishun, propelled by a funny kind of desire to dig into the matter. Something about this bothered her, though she couldn't really have said what. She wanted Amefuri to understand why it was important that they found one another in the end. To her, it seemed unbearably sad that the woman couldn't – and perhaps wouldn't – understand it. "Tell me. What the hell is it? Why can't two people be happy together?!"

"They can, I guess," shrugged Amefuri. Her remarkably unbothered stature did nothing to improve Reishun's mood.

The Suzaku Seishi bristled, as her companion continued to stay silent. Verbally silent, anyway. "But?!" she demanded, feeling very cranky.

Amefuri looked at her with some vexation, as though the idea about talking about stories agreed with her about as much as weaving. "How does this matter?" she demanded, and, before Reishun could say anything, she added, "Argh!" The thunder reflected her enunciation. "Okay, look. Just. She was shiny all by herself. She didn't need another shiny person to realise that, did she?"

The unbeatable logic of this reminded Reishun briefly of Hikari. "That is… just not how it works!" she said, frustrated, clearly quite bothered by the train of thought. Maybe, she reflected idly, it was not just this story and Amefuri's reaction, but several years of building up a certain idea of romance crashing around her in slow motion, as it had been doing for the last few weeks. "Romances don't function like that. The hero has to be around to show the heroine that quality in herself. She can't be complete without him – she isn't supposed to be!"

She has no idea how to, she almost added, but Amefuri was now beginning to look as though she has swallowed something disgusting and slimy. She was also looking at Reishun as though the latter was something disgusting and slimy. Reishun scowled, but kept glaring at her, waiting for a response. Yes, there were other very pressing things to consider – like Kutou's civil strife, the Black Dragon's reign of terror and their missing Shinzaho – but this seemed of paramount significance in this moment.

Overhead the thunder had stopped rumbling. A sliver of moonlight on the stable door behind Amefuri told Reishun the sky was clearing. When she spoke, Amefuri's voice was almost gentle, for someone who had caused the sky to thunder. "She was shiny before she met him," she pointed out. "As bright as him, by herself. If not brighter. She just needed a mirror."

Reishun was stumped. Something troubling and painful was happening inside her. For some reason she was even more troubled now. The light of hope and excitement inside her had flickered and died and for some reason she was more depressed now than she had been before. Because Amefuri had a point, even if Reishun didn't want to admit it. Why _hadn't_ that girl looked in a mirror?

Amefuri scowled, fiercely. When no thunder followed, she scowled even more, glaring almost resentfully at Reishun, as though the latter had deprived her the comfort of her cloudy skies. "I'm going to sleep now!" she snapped, surprisingly aggressively, as though she was just barely restraining herself from adding a rude word after her exclamation.

But Reishun hardly noticed, vaguely registering the Byakko Seishi's disappearance into the stables, the door slamming in her wake. She stood there, staring at the sliver of moonlight at the door, feeling oddly empty, more exhausted than ever. That night, she slept fitfully and dreamed of herself in a house that looked much like her own home, except that all the walls were mirrors, reflecting her as she was now: wasted from her mourning, exhausted and thinner from the food poisoning, and alone.

The next day, for the first time in weeks, Reishun was able to hold down her breakfast. Her food poisoning had gone, even though she felt oddly empty without it.

* * *

Nine o'clock on Monday morning found Keisuke sitting in his one bedroom apartment that had seemed, before these last few days, quite spacious.

Of course, before this, he had not gallantly given up his bedroom to a very alarmingly quiet and delicate-looking woman from ancient China in order to take the couch he had sworn he would give to Nakago. This did not really bother Nakago at all, for he was an expertly patient ghost who did not need to sleep and could spend many hours sitting next to Keisuke's head while the latter attempted to get some rest, his face as bland as possible. Keisuke had been waking to this visage for the last eight days.

Additionally, Hanako and Tetsuya had decided to haunt his flat instead of going to school and work respectively, and they turned up at the crack of dawn. Keisuke had been grateful when they had turned up the first time. The absence of the book left him in kind of vacuum, and he really did not know what to do with himself. But he quickly realised that while for Tetsuya the "crack of dawn" was a respectable 9 am, Hanako turned up at 6 am every single day, including Sunday! Apparently her parents either did not find this unusual or, because they had a veritable contingent of offspring, did not quite notice she was gone.

The idea clearly had been that they needed to construct A Plan. But in the utter absence of bright ideas, this only resulted in Li Fen and Hanako re-configuring his bachelor pad, stocking his fridge with everything but pizza and generally calling to question many of Keisuke's hitherto unquestioned life choices. Li Fen did this very gently, almost with a shy kind of curiosity which Keisuke would have found endearing if Hanako did not keep following her gentle queries up with interrogatory questions: Really, why wasn't he married? Hadn't he ever thought about it? Why did he not eat better? Who needed so many cheeses? It was only the memory of Hanako clinging to him and howling not too long ago, and the knowledge that underneath the extremely efficient, down-to-earth exterior was a very young teenager who was quite afraid, that kept Keisuke from tossing her out of the house in these moments.

Tetsuya on the other hand mostly spent his time being Tetsuya, which was many different things linked together by a common thread of Being Generally Useless. Mostly, Keisuke knew, he was there to mend the bridges Yui had burnt, and he did this by doing all he could.

Sometimes this included attempting to grill Nakago. These conversations did not usually end well. Keisuke wanted very much to believe that Nakago was being deliberately unhelpful and there was some clever scheme or thing he was not telling them - in fact, he was pretty sure there was something they were missing. But he could not deny that there was no plausible reason for the Seiryuu Seishi to be withholding information now, when his own existence was threatened.

A week after the book has burnt to ash, however, none of them could deny that they were thoroughly stumped. They had tried very many things, including contacting Einsuke Okuda's great grandson and the Ousugi clan (who were, while very disturbed, completely unsure of how to handle this situation). They had also spent one memorable afternoon yelling at Hanako's uniform, but this had had no effect whatsoever. Even if the uniform was a link of some kind, there was no one around on the other side to respond to them. Eventually, it became too depressing to try any longer, and they hung the uniform up in the living room and left it alone.

Thus, Hanako, with much agony, agreed to go to school this Monday morning, and Tetsuya went to work, and 9 a.m. found Keisuke (who was still skiving off - mostly because he did not think leaving Li Fen and Nakago alone in his apartment was a good idea) sitting at the kitchen counter, trying to explain how the toaster worked to an extremely paranoid and almost reverent Li Fen.

"It's really okay," said Keisuke, almost exasperated but mostly amused by her unwillingness to handle the Bread Demon.

It had taken Keisuke about five minutes after Yui had tossed them out of her house to realise that he was completely out of his depth when it came to Li Fen. The gentle-faced woman was utterly removed from all women he had ever met, sometimes in extremely obvious kinds of ways. Getting her to sit in his car had been a feat he would not have been able to manage without Hanako. Getting her to step out of the car had been a whole other ordeal. And convincing her that she could, in fact, stay in his apartment had been a really trying procedure.

Also, because no woman had ever lived in his apartment for a prolonged period of time, he had no clear notion of how to address issues larger than the matter of an extra toothbrush. For example, it took him several days to realise why the door to his bedroom was almost permanently closed, thereby blocking his access to the bathroom. Nakago in this matter was unhelpful, because, though he did not mind morphing from one corner of the flat to the other at the most inappropriate of times, he refused to pop his head in and see what was up with the small seamstress. Only Hanako had managed to work out the question of restricted access to the bathroom. It appeared that Li Fen had only one outfit to wear and was too particular to not wash her clothes every day. Hereafter, the issue was easily addressed, though the whole experience meant that now, every time he peed, he did so with a renewed sense of gratitude and, in these moments, it was all he could do not to hug Hanako and administer many noogies.

Li Fen now sat next to him in his smallest trousers (which she had to tie around her waist with a sash and roll up several times to properly use her feet) and full-sleeved shirt (which she had buttoned up to the top, so that despite her generally round and gentle appearance, she looked a bit severe). Buttons and belts were all concepts he had been utterly unable to explain to her, mostly because he didn't even think of buttons and belts as "concepts", but fortunately, being a seamstress she had grasped the essence of the matter. The toaster, however, was a whole other matter.

"See, I'll do it again," he said now, patiently, pressing down the catch of his toaster and trying not to be amused that Li Fen's eyes widened as the bread disappeared. She watched, carefully unmoving and transfixed as the bread toasted in his small yellow toaster, and jumped just a little as the toast popped back out with a happy 'ding!'.

"Keisuke-sama is," she said, very quietly, "so clever."

"Nope, nono," said Keisuke, shaking his head and hopping off the stool, generally embarrassed now, "just the toaster. You can do it too! Here!" he declared a bit wildly, shoving some bread at her, "now you try it!"

The Chinese woman turned bright red. "I- but-"

"Nono," said Keisuke, trying to sound firm but sounding rather aggressive. By now he recognised the colour of her cheeks as a sign that she was about to bolt, or cry, or both. "It's fine! It's just toast! For god's sak-" He paused, noting that her lower lip was now wobbling just a little. Foxed, he tried another line of attack. "I have total faith in you!" he declared, almost a little fiercely.

This seemed to stun the woman out of her wobbling lips and alarm. Her jaw dropped open a little and she stared at him as though he had grown an extra nose.

Something vague tickled at the back of Keisuke's mind, something like Intuitive Understanding, or Sensitivity. Some sense of compassion and empathy for the scared woman before him, lacking as she was in the way of self-confidence.

Alarmed by this bout of empathy, he took a step back.

"YOU tell her!" cried Keisuke, now casting wildly about until he found Nakago seated impassively on his couch. "You tell her it's not a demon!"

A rather long moment passed, in which Keisuke became very, very aware, under Nakago's very cold, very precise look, of his crazy expression and how particularly odd he must look. Very slowly, the Seiryuu Seishi raised an eyebrow, and for the longest time, it seemed as though he would simply chi-blast the bread to toast it better than Keisuke. Just the kind of thing he would do, the smarmy git, thought Keisuke.

Eventually, however, the git in question inclined his head towards Li Fen, and nodded. Keisuke found himself seething as Li Fen finally pressed down the catch. It would have taken time longer than he had and a person wiser than he was to understand why he felt irritated that his plan had, in fact, worked. But Nakago inclined his head towards the door now, and about a second later, someone - a very impatient someone, by the sounds of it - banged on the door.

"OPEEEEEEEEEEEEN THE DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR KEIIIIIIIIIIIISSUKEEEEEEE!" came Hanako's musical voice, adding, as an afterthought, "SENSEIIIIIIIIII!"

Grinding his teeth, Keisuke stomped to the door and swung it open. Hanako stood there, her hair askew, her chest heaving and her eyes bright. Clearly, she had run here - straight, it seemed by the textbook she was holding, from her English class. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE AT SCHOOL," Keisuke responded, at about the same volume, though this did not deter Hanako from bursting into his house, brandishing her bright red composition textbook like a sword and looking altogether manic.

"NOTES!" she yelled, looking from Nakago to Keisuke to Li Fen as though this was supposed to mean something. The toaster made its happy 'ding!', and they all turned briefly to look at it. Li Fen's face burst into a big beaming smile, one that Keisuke happened to think was pretty cute.

He looked back at Hanako, eyes wide. "Notes?" he asked her, determined to focus on everything that wasn't an adorable MARRIED Chinese woman in his living room.

His question brought Hanako back to her senses. She waved the textbook again, like a swordsman who had no idea what to do with a sword. "NOTES!" she yelled, also beaming.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **So this took a bit longer because there was soooo much editing to do. I'm sure there's STILL more editing to be done. Here's hoping the cheese was offset by the thunder and rumbling. Hope you've liked this so far!

_Disclaimers apply!_

**Reviews are awesome! You know they are!**


	5. 04 The Old Baggy Boneless Woman

**Chapter Four**

**The Old Baggy Boneless Woman**

* * *

It took Hanako several minutes, and some patting on the back from Li Fen, to stop hyperventilating and start trying to explain what had happened. It had all started, it seemed, in her English class, where her teacher had expressed great disappointment in them all and explained why they would never be writers, even though it was his sad task to make sure they tried. The collective performance of the class at writing a short story had been, in a word, abysmal and horrifying. Some students had made some kind of attempt, he had said, trying to throw in magical books and monstrous nine-headed beasts, but they'd really seemed to be trying too hard-

"Wait a minute," said Keisuke, looking worried. "Are you sure you should be writing about this-?!"

Hanako waved at him impatiently. "He didn't believe me! Thought I was telling a tall tale. Anyway," she plunged on, "it was then that he suggested we make _notes_!"

The exclamation point in her statement reverberated meaningfully around the room, to a total lack of effect. Li Fen and Keisuke stared at her, as though waiting for her to go on, without realising she had come to the point she'd been driving at before.

A few seconds passed, and then Keisuke cleared his throat. It had been a long and stressful week, he was thinking, as he regarded Hanako with some apprehension. Mental strain was bound to have some sort of impact on a thirteen-year-old. Poor girl. What could he do to help her? "Maybe you should have some tea!" he suggested, brightly.

"NOTES!" bellowed Hanako, at the same time, making Keisuke, and everyone else in the room, jump. "Sorry! I'm just- don't you see?! All writers must make notes!"

Something like deep apprehension was now beginning to stir in Keisuke's stomach. It was the kind of fear that ran through him when Miaka made seemingly innocuous suggestions, a sure sign that something tremendously catastrophic was on its way. Sure enough, in the next instant, Hanako proclaimed loudly:

"EINSUKE OKUDA'S NOTES!"

Keisuke's eyes attempted to pop out of his head, and Li Fen looked openly perplexed at this. But Nakago made a significant "Ah!" and popped out of visibility.

"Why did he do that…?" wondered Hanako, thrown off her train of thought for a second.

"Hanako-chan," Li Fen interrupted, softly, "I do not understand. What are you saying exactly?!"

"Einsuke Okuda must have made notes!" said Hanako, beaming, as though she truly believed she had found the answer to their troubles. "We just need to find them!"

Keisuke explained, for Li Fen's benefit. "Okuda-san was the one who wrote the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho out in our ... well, more recently, in Japan. The book we were reading-"

"Yeah, and if we can just find his notes-!"

"But he-" Keisuke paused, not wanting to pour cold water all over Hanako's hopes of getting her friend back. Never mind that her optimism made his own most painful fears surface. "Hanako, he died a long time ago-"

"I know! But his notes may have survived, right?"

"He _hated_ what he'd written because of what it did to his daughter. He killed himself and his daughter, _only_ to make sure no one found the Book. I don't think he would have left his notes lying around for anyone to find..." he trailed off, hating himself. The huge hopeful grin on Hanako's face had started to falter and fade, though her eyes were bright, as though, almost defiantly, she refused to let her tears flow. He could see her casting about for a different line of argument, for some way for her wild scheme to work.

Even more painful was her expression as she came up with nothing. Keisuke was stumped. How did you offer hope to someone when you had none within yourself?

"The answer is obvious." Nakago's deep voice shocked them all. No one had realised her had reappeared in the room. "We must retrace his steps and rewrite the book."

"Wha-"

"E-Exactly!" said Hanako, her split second hesitation about allying with Nakago overshadowed by her enthusiasm and, it seemed, clear belief that there was a way to bring Hanako, Miaka and Taka back. "Why can't we do that?"

Keisuke found that he was quite frustrated for someone who usually kept quite a clear head, really. Although he hated himself for kicking Hanako when she was down, he found himself loathing Nakago with a surprising fury for bring to bring her hopes back up. "Because we don't know where he went!" he almost yelled, his teeth clenched. "He spent years in China before and that could be anywhere!"

"I believe," said Nakago, his expression and voice quite bland, "I can shed some light on that. There are places in my world which are stronger havens for the Four Gods... I can tell you about them-"

"But your world is NOT a carbon copy of China!"

"And you," said Nakago, allowing a small smirk to take up residence on his face, "can help find the places in your world that do correspond with mine."

Keisuke fought the urge to kick Nakago, largely because he was incorporeal and it really wouldn't have driven the point he was trying to make home if he kicked the sofa instead. But, he also held back, because a very small part of him was lighting up, against his will. It was the same part of him that had kept reading the book even though rationality demanded he go to the police and report his sister as a Missing Person, which had inspired him to call for Chichiri and Tasuki when all seemed to be lost.

A second later, he discovered that Nakago was studying him closely and he felt almost a little violated. "Stop looking at me," he snapped. "Okay, maybe- _mayyybe_," he emphasized, glaring at Hanako sternly, "it could be possible. But that means-"

"WE NEED TO GO TO CHINA!" shouted Hanako, who was now vibrating in her chair as though ready to launch herself into outer space. "Sorry! Can't stop yelling! We're going to China!"

"We can't just GO to China - it's expensive, for one, and you're a kid-!"

Now Hanako did leap to her feet, her expression altering quite abruptly to one that was extremely fierce and rather threatening. "I am coming!" she said, loudly, looking firmly at Keisuke.

"You're just a child - we can't just gallivant off to China with you, what would your parents think?!"

"They will think that it is _fine_ because you are going to tell them that this is a school trip for an international basketball tournament for middle-schoolers," said Hanako, without batting an eyelid.

"They- I can't do that-" spluttered Keisuke, both alarmed and impressed with how easily the lie flowed from the thirteen-year-old. She didn't even look embarrassed. "I can't do that! I'm a teacher for god's sake!"

"Keisuke." said Hanako, taking a step forward, and looking more menacing than ever. "Sensei," she added, another afterthought. "You HAVE to. I am the current Bearer of the Book. HE said so!" She pointed at Nakago, who nodded.

Keisuke felt furious and absurdly betrayed. First Li Fen, now Hanako. "Why the hell does NO ONE REMEMBER that Nakago is a scheming, conniving bastard who almost destroyed Tokyo?! And raped my sister! And Yui!"

"I didn't, actually, rape anyone," put in Nakago, still totally bland.

"You were still totally descpicable and-"

"Oh I _haven't_ forgotten that," said Hanako, cutting into what could easily have become a battle of attempted wit and general egotism. "But he's got to get back to his own world, doesn't he? That's why he's here. The Shinzaho and the fact that he can't move on until he goes back. Am I right?!" she turned on Nakago, glowering.

Nakago raised an eyebrow in response, but this seemed to be good enough for Hanako, who turned back to Keisuke.

"I'm coming!"

"You are not!"

"Oh, but I am!"

"Hanako, we don't even have the money to get to China-"

But the door swung open and Tetsuya sauntered in, his sunglasses perched on his head and his arms full of Chinese take out and beer. "Are we going to China?" he asked, not looking particularly surprised. He looked rather zen, if anything. Keisuke growled. "I have money. When are we leaving?!"

* * *

She was really in the pits now. Damnitdamnitdamnit. She had no idea what a Hikitsu was but it really didn't sound good. Maybe he was setting some kind of monster on her to eat her alive. "Look, hold on, I'm not-"

"Shut up," snarled the boy. "You're some kind of spy and you're going to tell me what you're up to. HIKITSU-"

"Ohmygodohmygod what is that please don't call set your monster on me-"

Another arrow embedded itself beside her head, slicing the first into two. "I said," said the boy, flatly. "shut up. Or the next one I put through your eye."

She couldn't even whimper after that, her throat closing in complete panic. Things had been really, really bad in the last month or so, admittedly, but she had always had Nyan Nyan with her, and along with her presence a sort of complacency. But Nyan Nyan was nowhere to be found and she didn't dare call out for her. The boy had a third arrow drawn and aimed at her head.

They waited in silence for a few minutes before footsteps sounded in the vicinity.

A taller and seemingly older boy emerged from the woods, and Hikari felt her heart sink. There was nothing in his disposition that indicated he would be any kinder or more understanding than the first boy. If anything, he seemed cold, as cold as wintry north.

"What is this, Tomite?" he asked, raising an eyebrow elegantly. This raised some of the hair that seemed to be elegantly falling in his eyes, to reveal an eyepatch.

_Pirates!_ Hikari thought wildly, as the first boy told the other his theory about her being a spy. _Pirates in the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho version of Inner Mongolia - maybe they're the ancestors of Genghis Khan?!_

A sound caught somewhere between a snicker and fearful moan escaped her, and they both looked at her sharply, the first boy growling. But the second boy, who was Hikitsu and not a monster though no less terrifying, put a hand on his arrow and forced him to lower it.

"She can't be a spy," he said, flatly. "Look at her, she's an urchin at best. Some kind of vagrant."

"A vagrant _here_? Why would anyone come here if they weren't spying on us?!"

"We are a tribe of sheep-rearers, Tomite. There's not much to spy on."

"But there's also the," Tomite pointed at something on Hikitsu's face. This was clearly supposed to mean something, because he made an evocative open handed gesture before Hikitsu's nose, saying, "_you know!_"

Hikitsu did not seem particularly impressed. "Let's just ask her."

"Oh, _that'll_ do, no one's ever heard of a spy _lying_ to protect their cover-"

"I'll ask her ... nicely," finished Hikitsu, smiling a cold smile that chilled Hikari. He was going to torture her, she realised.

"I DID ask her," snapped Tomite, glaring at Hikitsu. But then he turned to Hikari as well. "But I can ask again too," he said, a sneer reaching his face.

No, no that wasn't it at all, thought Hikari hysterically. They were both going to torture her, like big bullies, and she, Hikari, was trapped.

"Look, I'm really not a spy, I'm just ... I just landed here and-"

Something flashed bright green, and what felt several extremely cold manacles pinned her wrists and ankles to the tree and ground.

But Hikari did not look down. She couldn't. The boy called Tomite stood with his left hand stretched out. He was shouting something about how lying would get her nowhere, but Hikari could only focus on the symbol on his hand, green like the gingerbread man had been back in the woods when Nyan Nyan had first forced her to _See_.

"Genbu," she breathed, completely thrown.

They both paused.

"What?!" demanded Tomite, looking slightly stricken.

"Sorry," she said hurriedly. "I only meant- it's. Um. Your hand has a symbol, but forget it, I'm shutting up now, _pleasedon'ttortureme_!"

"No, wait, you said 'Genbu', didn't you?!" Tomite's animosity was completely gone. If anything, he seemed suddenly excited and was regarding her like she was the Holy Grail. "You said Genbu!" he announced, and then let out a "HA!" of excitement, that made Hikari jump – which pulled at her wrists; her hands were encased in ice, she realised, icy manacles that had burst out of Tomie's hand. As though her synapses had been waiting for her to register this, pain burst into her consciousness.

Tomite had turned to Hikitsu, who stood beside him looking quite stunned. "I TOLD you! I TOLD you something would happen, and now here she is!" Despite the pain, Hikari was a little afraid he was going to start bouncing, even though that was, all things considered, preferable to his earlier disposition. "You know Genbu! You recognise this! You're-"

Trying to channel her awareness back to them and away from her wrists and ankles, Hikari cleared her throat. "I... well, you have the sign on your hand and so I just assumed-"

But they were both looking at her with something like reverence now, as though she was something wondrous and wholly unexpected. Their aggressive, slightly arrogant dispositions were gone (though Hikitsu looked quite arrogant even now, Hikari had to admit) and they seemed completely dumbfounded. Thunderstruck. "Okay, what?" she said, finally, wigged out.

"You... you're the Priestess of Genbu, aren't you?" said Hikitsu, finally. "We've been waiting for you."

"Eh!?" That was a bit unexpected. Hikari shook her head. "I'm not a priestess, I'm just... this isn't... what do you mean you've been waiting?" asked Hikari, too intrigued and alarmed and in pain to try to fathom all of this.

"We were born, here, the two of us. No one knows why. Two Seishi in a tribe of sheep-rearers seems like too many, doesn't it? So we've - I've figured it has to be because another priestess is coming! Especially because the land is really in trouble with the Black Dragon and everything!" Tomite's eyes were shining now, his disposition having shifted entirely from angry wolf to happy puppy. "That's it, right? That's who you are! You don't speak the way we do!"

Hikari didn't know how to respond to this. Tomite seemed so thrillied that it felt almost cruel to take that away from him. Not to mention there was a good chance they would go back to torturing her if she told them the truth.

"Um, well, no," she said finally, haltingly. "I'm not a priestess. I ... don't think the priestess is coming, that crazy nine-person man-beast guy destroyed the last book and so..."

It _was_ like kicking a puppy in the stomach. Two puppies, at that; though Hikitsu had an air of polish about him that kept him from looking forlorn in the way Tomite did, he looked deeply disappointed, which was no better.

"I'm sorry," she said, beginning to sort of register that she had stripped away their sense of self and purpose. "But I guess you should know."

Tomite hung his head, and despite her general sense of regret, she felt a stab of irritation. To her, it was a strange thing to feel disappointed about, to not have to go to war.

"Then... who are you?" Hikitsu asked. "How do you know this about the book? And who is the nine-person man-beast-guy...?"

"It's complicated," said Hikari, beginning to see why Nyan Nyan had felt safe enough to abandon her in the middle of the forest. As far as Nyan Nyan was concerned, these were allies, an she was safe. For Hikari, though, the prospect of allies was nearly as terrifying as that of her enemies. Not to mention that her hands and feet now seemed as though they were about to fall off. She blinked bck tears of pain, and the other stuff, the panic, that she was not able to keep down. "Um, look, do you think you can remove these? I'm about to lose my hands and I kind of need them because I'm looking for the Shinzaho of Genbu."

"Why?" asked Tomite, looking up suddenly, slightly suspicious. "What do you want with it?"

"It's something I kind of..." Hikari closed her eyes, trying to ignore the shivering spasms. "I'm looking for them. I have to find them to ... do something for Taiitsukun, and um-"

"What? What do you have to you?"

"I'm the _godforsaken Shinzaho of Suzaku_, will you _PLEASE GET THESE OFF ME_?" she finished in a yell, surprising everyone including herself.

"Oh," said Tomite, and waved a hand to shatter her icy chains. "Oops."

"Oops?! You complete-" She accused him of something unpleasant, at which, to his credit, he had the decency of looking a bit sheepish. Hikari rubbed her wrists vigorously and glared at him. This time the pain from being frozen was running through her bones, leaving her shivering even though she was shrouded in the terribly ugly, large coat in addition to the one she had stolen from the old woman.

This brought her back, thinking of the old woman, and she sprang her into action – for the old woman reminded her of another Obaasan who had chosen to offer Reishun and her food and shelter, and had paid a terrible price for it. The great panic reached for Hikari.

"Right," she said, scrambling painfully to her feet. "I'm off."

"Oh, no, hold on!" said Tomite, taking a step towards her. "You can't just leave. What do you mean you're the Shinzaho? How do we even know that's true?! And you're- What are you doing here, in Hokkan? Maybe we can help! Or maybe we should capture you anyway-"

"No, I'm fine," said Hikari, very quickly, taking a step back to realise she was flanked by a tree. Hikitsu was looking at her rather narrowly with his single eye – which reminded her, of course, of Chichiri and _his_ terrible fate, and she sprang from the tree as though singed. "Don't worry about it, okay? It's not a big deal at all. I'm fine! I'm great! I've got it completely under contol - and you just... relax and take care of your... just, um, carry on!" she finished, oddly breathless.

There was a slight pressure on her chest she had only ever felt in the context of a mathematics examination. But that thought brought back memories of how she had been dreading simple, easy things like maths on the morning this had all begun. The pressure grew exponentially, and shaking her head, she took a few steps backwards, away from the boys, before turning to walk furiously into the depth of the woods.

It took them a moment to register what she was doing, perhaps because damsels who were so clearly distressed were supposed to run into the waiting arms of the cute-if-rather-nasty boy and his mysterious pirate friend, and not AWAY from them. Responding to this probably required a reconfiguration of some kind.

"Wait!" yelled Tomite.

"Now, Nyan Nyan, take me away now!" said Hikari, desperately. But Nyan Nyan did not pop out of the trees to save her. Feeling entirely horrified and desperate, Hikari burst into a run as well.

"OY!" roared Tomite, now sprinting after her.

Hikari was in better physical shape than she had been when she had landed in the book; three weeks of traversing a rugged terrain had added to her stamina. Not to mention, she was propelled by her anxieties, which were rather powerful. Despite that her head was beginning to swim a bit and her notion of direction was confused, and that her vision was beginning to get a bit blurred, she ran. But she was still shorter by far, and by no means a trained runner or archer or solider or anything. And so it was not surprising, if quite annoying, when Tomite jogged beside her.

"What are you doing?" he asked, rather comfortably, as though he was taking a calming morning walk. "How can you be the Shinzaho? And what's your plan?"

Hikari, on the contrary, was having some serious issued breathing now. Her breath hitched painfully as she opened her mouth to try to respond. "I'm- ohhh," she groaned, panting from both physical and emotional stress, "just go, I don't need- ugh!"

She tripped. It was one of those things. Some people – and Tomite, who had jogged a few paces ahead and was now coming bacl, was clearly one of them – could run through all kinds of space without tripping even if they didn't look down to check where they were going. Hikari however was regularly accosted by parking lots, gravel, forest floors, mountain paths, and bridges across raging rivers, not to mention her own damn feet. Fortunately, the snow was soft to land on and her knees were only half as shaken as she was.

She tried to open her mouth to say something, but it became quickly clear that this was not really going to be possible. "Can't... breathe..." she managed, as Tomite landed beside her.

"You okay?!" he asked, extracting a furious look from Hikari. "Right, no, you can't breathe. Why can't you breathe? You are _really_ out of shape-"

"Tomite," said Hikitsu, who came to kneel next to Hikari as well, speaking rather pointedly. "Shut up."

"I'm just trying to-" but Tomite cut herself off, though Hikari, who was now firmly looking at the ground and trying to breathe, could not see why. Hikitsu had glared him into silence, most likely, for which she would thank him. Except that having him join them was even worse. It was terrifying. She could hear a litany of "_you'll kill them all, you'll kill them all,_ _you'll kill them all,"_ taking up rhythm in her head, and somehow it was even more difficult to breathe against it.

"Panic," she said finally, her breath hitching.

"Yes," said Hikitsu, calmly. "What can we do?"

"Go _away_!" said Hikari, desperately.

"Other than that," he said, in the same tone he had used on Tomite, as though she was being rather dense.

Hikari cast about wildly. The last time she had panicked at all had been about a year back, on the morning of her mathematics exam. Her teacher had been a particularly vindictive man who hated her especially, given her total lack of propensity with numbers. So, both her parents had come to drop her off to school-

Damn it. She closed her eyes and tried to push the image out of her mind. Her mother standing beside her and rubbing soothing circles on her back, her dad trying to tell her she would be okay. Hanako looking at her as though she had sprung an extra head as she walked by, muttering formulas furiously under her breath. Her mother taking her lunch out of the brown paper bag she had packed it and asking her to breathe into it.

She was suddenly on the verge of tears, in the same selfish way that tears had come before. Not out of sorrow for her mother's suffering, but out of sadness for herself and what she would miss out on. She couldn't very well ask one of these stupid boys to rub her back, though her back seemed to crave it. She seemed to crave it, a touch that could simply not be replicated.

"What's ... the ancient ... Chinese ... version ... of a paper ... bag?!" she asked, with tremendous effort.

They both looked at her, Tomite rather distraught by this display of emotion, and Hikitsu seemingly very concerned, though Hikari was not sure if he was concerned _for_ her or simply _about_ her. _Us there an ancient Chinese version of a butterfly net? _she thought, disconcerted.

"Oh! I know!" said Tomite, slapping her on the back as she struggled to breathe. She let out a sound caught somewhere between a whimper and a cry. "I know! I know a paper bag thing, whatever it is- or I know someone-"

"No nonono, no someone! No more someone!"

"SOMETHING!" yelled Tomite, inspiring another pointed look from Hikitsu, as he made Hikari jump. "It's not a person, it's just a thing. It's that paper bag thing, it's fine-"

"Tomite," said Hikitsu, sharply, glaring at him. The excitable Tomite subsided. "Listen, we can help you. You need rest. Let us take you to our village-"

"No, no, I don't want to go to-" There was now definitely something hot and wet on her cheeks now. She burrowed her face in her hands, humiliated and horrified. "No people, I don't need help, I just-"

"You can leave once you can breathe," said Hikitsu, in a slightly softer voice. He still sounded cool and collected, but now his voice was like softly falling snow, not jagged icicles. "I promise."

Hikari looked at him, but his one eye was sincere, solemn, as in the vicinity, Tomite panicked like any adolescent boy faced with so many feelings all at once. She couldn't see a way out, really, especially since her arms and legs seemed to now be made of Lead, and there was something inside her that was too terrified to move. As though, by moving she would cause someone to die.

Finally, though it terrified her and she would have rather sat there in horrified agony for the rest of her life, she nodded.

"I'm holding... you to that ... promise," she said, trying to look firm and retain oxygen all at the same time.

* * *

There was a terrible emptiness in his chest that had nothing to do with hunger and thirst, though those were what had woken him. The world felt oddly incongruous. A soft orange glow filtered into the room though the windows, the bamboo curtains only half drawn up. He was lying on a soft bed, warm and safe, his body miraculously free of pain. The burnt sensation in his lungs was gone. He could tell as the air entered his nose, chest, and lungs, though, that he would never breathe with casual, complacent acceptance again.

But he was breathing. He was alive.

Chichiri bolted up in bed in alarm. He was alive. How was this possible? He had felt the acrid firey smoke enter his lungs, felt himself slip into a dark, empty land where he could rest, finally. He had felt it. So how was this possible?!

A soft hand reached for his shoulder and he jumped, starting horribly and moving with energy he didn't have the right to have towards the wall against which his cot seemed to be placed, away from the softness of Subaru's hand.

_Subaru. _

Chichiri stared at her as she withdrew her hand, placing it gently on her lap, and looking at him in a gentle, patient sort of way.

"What- how are you here?" he asked, somehow terrified of her softness. "What happened?" he asked, slightly more calm.

"We arrived a few hours ago," said Subaru, in an even voice. He knew she was keeping her voice low to make sure she didn't unsettle him. He was floundering internally, somehow unable to find his center and ground himself. Something like fear was pounding in his chest, nightmarish visions flashing in split second memories in his mind. It was as though someone had decided to wake him from a most restful sleep by screaming bloody murder. It took him a second to register that his own vision was blurred, adding to the luminescent, unreal quality of Subaru's appearance, though her softness was oddly jagged to his experience.

"What ... happened?" he asked, trying to remember how to breathe properly. "What did you do?"

"Not nearly enough," said Subaru. She seemed to consider him for a few moments. Her presence was not intrusive, but he knew her to scarily perceptive. After a bit, she gently put a very soft hand on his rather knobbly one. This too caused a burst of fear in Chichiri's chest for a few moments, but she pressed down a little and the gentle pressure slowly began to feel like an anchor. His breathing evened a bit, and he was able to notice that she felt a bit cold. Taking several deep, steadying breaths, he looked at her.

She looked significantly older than she had when he had last seen her, somehow slightly smaller as though she had shrunk a bit in a short time, more hunched and shrouded. He realised, as he turned his hand to hold hers, as an old friend would have, that she was shaking just a little.

He was beginning to piece together what had happened. She had healed him, perhaps worked on his injuries for hours, and it had left her depleted. She was far, far too old to work on injuries of the kind he'd had. He himself knew how far down into the darkness he had gone. If she had let him be, maybe he could have stayed there forever. There had been a kind of restfulness about the dark, a quietness. A sense that he could now cease to wander and rest, finally.

"What did this cost you?" he asked, very slowly.

Subaru smiled, gently. "Nothing I didn't want to give. And not nearly enough. I don't know," she said, heavily, "if you will ever recover fully."

This didn't bother Chichiri at all. He was more concerned with the incongruity of his breath, the anomaly of his survival. "I didn't need to survive this," he said, after a long while. "I didn't need to. My purpose is done, my battle if fought. I am done. You should have just let me be and saved your strength." He turned away to look at the long shadows cast across the room by the setting sun.

Subaru said nothing for a bit. He wondered if he had hurt her feelings, but could not bring himself to look at her to check. He had not spoken as though he was ungrateful – for of course he was. But there was a sense of defeat about him now, a sense of futility. He could not remember what the point was. He had saved those children, it was true, and he had died – or he had been sure he had died. Maybe he had even wanted to. The bitterness in his tone was unmistakeable even to himself.

"This is what I have saved my strength for, Chichiri," Subaru said, after a long time. Her voice was not angry or hurt, but soft and anchoring as her hand had been to his consciousness. "I know you feel like you're done. You have been wounded, beaten and hurt, tortured as no human being should be. I know this, because I have healed your physical wounds, and because I know the limitations of my power. I know you will feel empty for a while, because your emotional scars will have no physical anchor.

"And I can guess how you survived the torture. Locking a part of yourself away. There is no other way to survive that kind of thing. But it is terribly undoing, almost savage." There was an incredible pain in her voice now. "I know this because I have seen others go through it," she said, as though she could hear his thoughts. "It is not a choice they all make. But because you could choose to protect yourself, to hide the information in a small corner in your mind, you will recover faster, and it will be all that much more painful as it comes back to you. I imagine that when the attack came, it had already started."

Chichiri did not respond. It was not an experience meant to be described in words, perhaps, but Subaru was managing to do it for him. In a way he was grateful to hear her speak of it, to put into words what he couldn't bear to acknowledge, and on another level, he wanted to recoil from it. There was also now a sense suddenly that he was not alone in his pain, and he wanted to recoil from that too. He would have to face it by himself, feel it on his own... but here was one person who could understand. Someone older, who had lived longer, and who was offering him support. She reached out to touch his head gently, like a mother would, though she spoke to him as an old friend, and it brought burning tears to the one eye that could still weep.

"You are one of the last of your generation of Seishi," she went on. "It isn't easy, Chichiri, to be the only ones left behind, to be sought out by purpose and battles that seem to belong to the new cycle of warriors. Your battles seem fought, and of course, you have fought them – too many, too soon. But this is your battle, too, your burden – of survival. When others die and move on, when they give their lives to save you."

"Miaka died," said Chichiri, his tears dripping onto the blankets. "My Priestess died. That was supposed to be... my battle. But she's gone now and I'm..."

Now he cried in earnest, weeping for his loss, his sense of failure, his own defeat and painful return to life.

Subaru, however, pressed on, almost sensing that he needed that anchor now, needed her to speak and keep him tied to the world to which his own connection felt fragile, brittle. "You are not alone. You have Tasuki, who has lost his Priestess too. And you have me, for as long as my bones have any life in them." She smiled at him as he looked up.

"Come," she said, and reached to wipe the tears from his cheek. "And we will grieve together and say good-bye, properly.

* * *

On their final night there, Minori-Obaasan told a crowd of excited children and Reishun (Amefuri refused to sit through another story and was attending to the horses instead) a story about a woman who carried her stories in her bones.

_Once upon a time, _she told them, _there was a young woman with many stories inside her, stories which she had written on her own bones. Over the years, she had many lovers and children and friends. And every time one of them had a question, she would reach inside of her, pull out one of her bones, and tell them the story written on it. _

_Over the years, she gave away all her stories, and with them, her hopes, her dreams, her ideas and memories, everything that made her herself. When she was an old woman, she had no more bones, and her body became so wrinkled that if you pulled her cheeks they would stretch out as large as bat wings. _

"Like this!" declared old Minori-san, and stretched out her own cheeks, much to the delight of the children, and Reishun too, who grinned, though the story was touching something in her as the old woman told it.

_When she was very old and about to die, they tribe took her out into the cold desert to die in peace. She remembered nothing, like an empty bag, carrying no memories or thoughts of herself. But she loved her granddaughter very much and asked to keep her close. _

_The granddaughter remembered the old stories her grandmother had taught her, and sitting there by the old baggy boneless woman, she decided to tell her children the same story. And as she wove the story, a strange thing began to happen to her grandmother. Slowly, but surely, her shapeless arm began to acquire a shape, as though it was re-growing the old bone that was lost. _

_Excited, the granddaughter ran to her brothers and sisters, and asked them to bring the stories they had heard from the old woman back to her. And as they did, little bones grew back in her body. She began to remember who she was. _

_They set out then to wander across the lands to find all her missing stories, passed down from her to her family and friends and lovers and children, and one by one her bones grew back, until all had returned but one, the bone at the center of her chest. They did not know where to find it. _

_Then, her brother remembered that there had once been a man, a man she may have loved more than any other, and to him it seemed she had told a story so deeply connected with her heart that when he had left, he had taken it with her. Where would they find that story? they wondered._

At this point Minori stopped and declared, "And that, little children, is another story for another night!"

Reishun was vastly disappointed. She would have liked to hear about the story of the woman's heart as well, but more than that, she would have liked to know that it _did_ come back to her, and that a man, however wonderful, could not wander forever with his former lover's breastbone.

It was several moments before she realised someone was standing right next to her and looking at her expectantly. It was the better looking of Shiori's close friends and commanders, rather tall and imposing, and seemingly focused entirely on her. Reishun felt something in her stomach turn as he smiled slightly.

"I have been watching you both."

"Oh?" she said, smiling as stupidly as she could. "I hadn't noticed."

He seemed amused, as though he had indeed realised she had been watching him as well, and found her attempt to cover it up quaint. I'll show him quaint! thought Reishun, still smiling like a simpering idiot. She had no illusions of what was going on here. He suspected them and thought she, Reishun, was the weaker of the two and could be broken. Hah! Well, she'd show him!

"Oh alright," she said, now shooting him her best, most charming smile. "I might have."

"Well that's good," said the man, smirking, taking this as an invitation to sit down next to her. "At least now I know you _might_ have noticed me. I'm Hitoshi."

"Reishun," she said, beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable, not because she thought he might take advantage of her – she would toss him bodily across the clearing back to his space if he did – but because she was suddenly less sure of what he wanted. Did he want to grill her for information or get gooey eyed and romantic? Both prospects seemed quite suspicious.

It did not help that he was indeed a rather good looking man. Living in the countryside often meant people chewed questionable substances and drank too much liquor, losing their teeth and stomach functions fairly early on. But he seemed to have retained full use of both those devices, the former of which flashed brightly and invitingly at her. And suddenly, Reishun was aware that she hadn't said anything in a longish while. Damn.

She cleared her throat. "And well, you're not... unnoticeable." It was difficult to frame words around the foot in her mouth. "

"Ah," he said, caught somewhere between looking pleased and slightly embarrassed. "Sake?" He produced the offering from somewhere on his person.

"Sake," she agreed, because it may have been rude not to take it. She took a sip and swirled it around her mouth. "This isn't from Sairou."

"You know your sake, I see," said Hitoshi, sounding impressed. "I wonder where a girl like you gets to learn about something like that."

_Right,_ thought Reishun. _It's an interrogation then._ "Wouldn't you like to know?" she said, donning a charming half smile which she knew to be coy and effective on men. It was easier to flirt with him when she knew he was basically interrogating her.

"Oh I would," he said, leaning back on his elbows and shooting her a lazy, coy look of his own. "I _really_ would."

Slimy, sweet-talking, ridiculously handsome bastard, thought Reishun, taking another sip of her wine. "It's not really all that interesting a story," she said. "My father ran a sake shop in our village."

"And what village is that?"

"Was. Odo village," she said, shortly. "It was destroyed by soldiers from Sairou."

"Oh," he said, as Reishun sent up an apology to Oda and his grandmother.

They had decided on this as their cover story before they had reached Shiori's village. It was strange how easily the lie had come to them, how easy it was to think of the village now. Reishun was guilty, and suddenly nauseous again. She set her sake cup down next to her.

To her astonishment, Hitoshi gently placed his hand on hers, apparently taking her conflicted expression to mean that she was moved by her own memories.

"I'm so sorry," he said, and he really sounded like he meant it.

"It's okay," she said, trying to shrug it off, along with his hand. "It's not your fault."

They sat there in silence, punctuated a little by small rumbles of thunder in the distance, portending a storm. Reishun's thoughts drifted to Oda, the man who was so attached to his pigs, so scared of his grandmother and, in the end, not unwilling to help them as long as he could be grumpy about it. He had called them "weird travellers", she remembered, amongst other things, and then told them about other strange travellers...

_"Weird travellers," he had muttered resentfully._

_"You've had other travellers?" she had asked, hoping to hear about Eian._

_"Yes. Three months ago, we had a traveller, also heading to Kutou - although he didn't plant himself in someone's pig pen."_

To her surprise, tears burned at the back of her eyelids, as they hadn't since they had left Eiyou. Even more surprising was the idea that suggested itself to her in the next moment. "I-" she wiped her eyes furiously, and then realised it may have been more dramatic and effective to let her tears flow. But they had gone the second she had paid any attention to them. "You know, three months before they came, a traveller from Sairou passed through the village. A single traveller heading East. I always wondered if he was a spy... foretelling the attack. We didn't realise. He was asking silly questions about..." She allowed herself to trail off dramatically.

"About what?" asked the man. For all intents, he seemed to be listening to her closely, his eyes full of something that glinted like compassion in the firelight.

"A scroll or something," said Reishun, loathing herself in the moment. "I don't know. Seems so foolish, doesn't it?"

But Hitoshi did not seem to think this was strange. He leaned away from her looking into the fire, as though he was having some deep thoughts about the matter. Reishun wanted to pump him for information. Or thump him. That she was rather good at. But at the moment, it would have worked against her, given that she was playing the shy, mournful young woman, and not the pushy, blunt and inordinately strong Seishi. When he didn't say anything for several minutes, she began to wonder if something was actually wrong, "Are you okay?" she asked, finally.

Hitoshi blinked, looking a little startled. "I- oh, well," he said, shaking his head. "I'm fine. It's just that I don't think that man was a spy."

"What do you mean?" asked Reishun, widening her eyes for effect.

"I mean we've been trading with Sairou's army for a while now," he said, shrugging. "They have been giving us weapons, you see? He couldn't have been a spy." Something about his shrug had Reishun completely unconvinced. He knew more than he was letting on and she was sure of it. She was really beginning to regret her approach to the situation; thumping it out of him would have been easier and a lot less stressful.

"Really? He wasn't trying to sell anything. If anything, he had a lot of questions," said Reishun, her stomach swirling nastily as she realised she could be saying too much. But she had never really been the kind to word her questions subtly. "About some old book and other things like that."

"Oh!" said Hitoshi, now looking genuinely surprised. "That sounds strange. Maybe he was a spy, but... Sairou's forces have committed to staying out of our affairs, you see."

Looking rather important, and with the air of someone wanting to educate her and simultaneously show off, he launched into a lecture about how the political milieu required great strategy and it was a mutual understanding amongst the tribes to keep external forces at bay, while making use of their weapons and superior military knowledge of course. He spoke for a longish time, during which Reishun reflected that he was probably not trying to probe her for information, unless boring her to tears was a strategy to that end. She was rather thankful when the storm hit, just as Amefuri returned looking altogether furious for some reason or another, and the rain forced everyone to go back to their assigned sleeping spaces.

"So sad to cut this off," said Reishun, boldly resisting the urge to roll her eyes, and smiling as charmingly as she could.

"We will pick up tomorrow!" said Hitoshi, but Reishun had firmly turned away.

She had to actually run to catch up with Amefuri who was stomping back towards the stables where they slept, and found that her normal stride, which was usually quite enough to keep up with the Byakko Seishi, was not enough. Something had really pissed her off. It also finally registered that the storm had something to do with Amefuri's mood – though Kutou was quite a rainy country to begin with. The warrior was not saying anything, though her body movements were focused, rough, as though she was preparing for a fight.

In this way, they practically ran to the stables, their way lit only by the torch Amefuri was carrying. The moment they were inside, she stomped around, lighting up the other torches they had been rationed, casting their minimal sleeping quarters in a gentle warm glow that didn't quite manage to keep the storm at bay. Reishun tried for a few minutes to ignore it, but the sounds of annoyance the small growls and huffs of frustration, were beginning to rankle her.

"Is something the matter?" she asked, finally.

"Why would anything be the matter?" said Amefuri, a little too quickly, glaring at nothing in particular.

"There's a storm," pointed out Reishun, putting her hands on her hips.

"Storms happen," agreed Amefuri. Overhead, thunder rolled, sounding much like a heavy cart of potatoes hurtling down a flight of stairs. "I don't understand why you were talking to that man." She sounded strangely calm now, much to Reishun's own frustration.

"He came over and wanted to know where we were from. It would have been suspicious not to answer his questions," snapped Reishun, and then, as another roll of thunder grumbled overhead, she rolled her eyes. "And if you're bothered about it, why can't you simply be bothered instead of throwing a damned thunderstorm!" She was dimly aware that she was beginning to yell a little.

"Why would I be bothered?" asked Amefuri, now looking almost smugly calm. "I just don't understand why answering his questions required holding his hand and getting silly over him."

"I wasn't _getting silly_!" fumed Reishun. "_He_ held my hand, for like _a second_, because I told him about our village being destroyed."

"Sure," said Amefuri.

"That's what happened!"

"I don't care," said Amefuri, very coldly, her eyes placed squarely on Reishun. She spoke rather deliberately, as though making sure Reishun knew she was thinking out her words, so there was no doubt in her mind about what she was saying, or why. "You want to hold his hand, it's really your business. It's not like you've got Eian to go back to anymore."

It took some effort at this point for Reishun to remind herself that she couldn't hit Amefuri because she was about as strong as ten obnoxiously large and well-built men, and because it would be very hard to explain to Byakko why she had decided to kill of his warriors in the midst of the worst crisis the universe had ever seen. All she could do was to glower, and feel truly pissed off.

"What on earth is your problem?" she demanded, not bothering to hide her disgust and hurt. "Sure, I don't have Eian to go back to, and, yes, I'm stuck here with you, and, YEAH, I would REALLY RATHER BE ANYWHERE ELSE, AS I'M SURE YOU WOULD-"

"Stop yelling," stated Amefuri.

Her calm, unaffected tone set Reishun off. She stomped up to the door and flung it open, pointing to the sky and looking, altogether, a bit mental. "_YOU_ STOP YELLING!" she hollered, furious. "JUST BECAUSE YOU HIDE YOUR EMOTIONS," she slammed the door, "WITH THE WEATHER-"

"Oh, and you're doing a great job of expressing them, vomiting all over the place and shouting-"

"AT LEAST I'M EXPRESSING MYSELF, YOU INFURIATING, INCREDIBLY STUPID CRAZY PSYCHOTIC-"

"I'm leaving," stated Amefuri, still speaking in a deadpan.

But as Amefuri turned away from her, Reishun felt something explode inside her like lava. What the hell did people think she was, a punching bag? What was it about her that seemed to tell people it was okay to say nasty, hurtful things and then simply walk away?!

She spoke just as Amefuri reached the door, in a voice that was trembling with hurt and rage, with all the anger she had not expressed to Eian, who had kept her waiting for four years, all the fury that she perhaps would have been directed to _him_.

"Having a set of ugly scars on your back does not make it okay to hurt other people, Amefuri," she said, her voice cracking out of an unhealthy mixture of pain, self-loathing, and rage.

She knew that this, more than the yelling and screaming, more than the stomping and name-calling, would force the Byakko warrior to stop, to turn, to look at her and really see her in all the infinitely ugly realities that surrounded her being. In all her vulnerability, all her desperation to matter, her horrible desire to be loved, to be special – and the naked, bitter truth that she was just as petty, just as miserable and full of vindictive resentment as anyone else. She knew, as Amefuri turned, ashen-faced to look at her with a terrible nakedness, that this attention she had wrangled from the clutches of the Byakko Seishi, was a hideous caricature of all those things she craved, all those beautiful things twisted and bent out of shape, by her own malevolence.

The sobs escaped her as Amefuri turned, a second later, and slammed out of the stable. Tears that had not shown up in the last few weeks were here, finally. The sky cracked and emptied itself onto the earth, as Reishun wept with it that night.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** This still exists, and I'm still here, slow and steady. Thanks to everyone who is reading, and especially MercuryMoon, who is awesome. 3


	6. 05 Old Friends and New

**Chapter Five**

**Old Friends and New**

* * *

It turned out that Tomite's idea of an ancient Chinese paper bag was not a thing at all (which Hikari had known, even though it didn't calm her down at all to realise this) but his mother.

Other than being Chinese, she had little in common with that imaginary artifact. She was not ancient in the slightest; she looked around the same age as Miaka had been, in fact, was pleasantly plump and dressed in clothes that were more organised and interesting than a paper bag at any rate. But she was just about as effective as a paper bag may have been in calming Hikari down, even if her methods were notably different.

The first thing she did was to shoo away Tomite, who had tried to interrogate her while Hikitsu had (humiliatingly) carried her to the village, making it feel like a very long journey. His mother however knocked him on the head and sent him away, to Hikari's great relief. She had the thirteen-year-old sit firmly by a fire, drink tea and sit there while she administered a rubbing to her back. Both the tea and the backrub were strong and oddly soothing at the same time. Hikari could seem the hands that seemed to be pressing down on her chest almost melt way as she drank, and nothing could compare with the sense of being actually, physically warm.

Then, even more firmly, she took her away from the small village towards a cave with what appeared to be some hot springs. They were a nomadic tribe, the woman Hikari only knew as "Kaasan" informed her, and they came here in the winter as it was far more palatable than the bitter winds of the extreme northern reaches of Hokkan. Hikari tried to adjust her sensibilities to accommodate the idea of this weather as "mild" and "palatable". But once they were in the caves and the steam from the hot springs touched her exhausted body, she began to understand how this was preferable and perhaps even "homely".

Kaasan insisted on staying in the cave to help Hikari bathe, despite Hikari's many attempts to explain that she was extremely good at washing herself and had been doing it on her own since she was five. This had no effect on the older woman. Hikari had the impression that she could fix everything. She could certainly fix adolescent whining, and Hikari found herself stripping completely with the woman standing next to her and examining her critically.

It was an odd experience. Even her own mother had not really watched her undress since she had turned seven (and that was only because there had been an unfortunate incident with a snail that had crawled up Hikari's trousers, leading to a general expulsion of clothing all over the place), and she had not been examined so critically ever, in her recollection. It was a while before Hikari realised that it wasn't just the layers of dirt she had accumulated in the last week and a half. It was also that she had new scars, which were now healed significantly, but still branded red upon her arms. She also had various bumps and bruises, a broken toenail that she hadn't even registered (there was something to be said for frozen toes) and several scratches on her face. Suddenly she felt very raw and exposed, and dipped herself into the hot pool to scrub herself.

Something was happening to her, something that felt a little like unraveling, something she was not ready for. But the hot water peeled away at her numbness and the layers of hard, fortifying resistance she had built to freeze things within herself and keep other things out.

"I've just... had a long journey," she said, and was not particularly glad to hear her voice echo all around the cave. She was very conscious of being looked and looked firmly away, certain she would not be able to handle any kindness and consideration at this conjuncture. "What is your name?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Well, most people call me Kaasan - you could too, if you like," said the woman, who was now washing Hikari's distressingly mucky and extremely bedraggled clothes. "These might be beyond repair. You're coming from the South, aren't you? Their clothes can't withstand our weather."

"I'm not going to," said Hikari, trying to push the image of Eiyou out of her mind. Eiyou reminded her of her father and Reishun and Houki and the little shiny boy who had called himself the yellow dragon. It wrenched her and Hikari tried to stay unwrenched. "I can't call you Kaasan. I need... what's your name?"

"Why not?" asked the woman, and Hikari could feel her eyes focused on her. It was as though she knew. Maybe Tomo had been here and told everyone and left instructions on how to make her feel like crap. Or maybe Nyan Nyan - who was still absconding out of what Hikari could now recognise as a solid sulk because of the thirteen-year-old's prolonged rudeness - had popped into the village and told everyone. Either way, Hikari was convinced that this "Kaasan" knew and that she wanted her to speak of it, say it out loud. Maybe she even wanted her to cry, so she could pat her and tell her it was all okay, and wasn't she here, a readymade Kaasan for her to adopt? Hikari felt viciously angry, almost violent; she wanted to tell the lady to bugger off, offer her some sound advice as to where she could put her kindness and run away with her stupid, unsuitable southern clothes.

But lashing out like that was also not something she wanted to do. She didn't want to expel her emotions in front of these completely strangers. She didn't want their soothing backrubs and warm tea. In an odd way, she felt almost protective of her emotions, not wanting everyone to see them. Not that she was too sure what would happen if they did see them. But carrying the burden of unshed tears and unexpressed feelings felt ... right in a way. Letting go of them felt like letting go of her mother.

So she took a deep breath, and reigned it in. Hating the shaking of her voice, she spoke in a low tone. "My mother just died. I can't call you that."

There was a long silence, full of what Hikari imagined was an understanding or deeply sympathetic gaze, though she refused to look up. It was one thing to be stripped of her clothes, but this kind of nakedness she was not prepared for.

"Batu," said the woman finally. "My name is Batu."

* * *

When she finally slept, still crying, she slept fitfully.

_Her dreams were haunted by tall warrior in Suzaku's fierce vermillion, carrying something in a bag, just out of her reach and heading in the wrong direction, while all the while it rained heavily on her head. She was following him several feet behind and trying to reach him, though her path was obstructed by a thick forest, full of howling wolves and other monstrous creatures. _

_Eventually, he paused in a clearing, and set down the bag, as though it was too heavy, taking out its contents: an ornate sword, which he sheathed in its scabbard, a bright blue earring that glowed fiercely, a mirror and a necklace. Then, he felt around in his bag and brought out something dripping in blood, bright red, and cast it to the side of the clearing. _

_Reishun felt a huge pain in the center of her chest, and as she looked down, she found that her chest was grotesquely hollow. It was her heart-bone - the bone from the center of the chest, that story without which she would never be complete. _

_As she watched, Eian packed up his bag and walked away, leaving behind the bone that bled into the earth, as the rain poured down, washing away the blood, the last traces of its life-_

Reishun opened her eyes with a start, only to find Donghai's face very close to her own. She yelled, alarmed.

Something crashed heavily into her side, drawing out a grunt that turned into a bit of a squeal as whatever-it-was placed its knees squarely on her stomach and launched itself at Donghai.

"Argh argh STOP IT IT'S ME!" Donghai yelped, his tone a lot more high pitched than Reishun's own.

All movement stopped, giving Reishun a moment to catch up with what had happened. The light from the torch was faint now, indicating it was very close to dawn. It appeared that Amefuri - who must have come back into the stables at some point of time in the night - had thrown herself bodily at what she imagined was Reishun's assailant (kicking Reishun's ribs in the process of course) and was now perched on Donghai's stomach, her knife placed steadily at his throat. Donghai was squeaking, and Reishun could empathise. Even tousle-haired and bleary-eyed, Amefuri was rather terrifying.

"It's Donghai!" she said, but Amefuri made no move to get up.

Although the Byakko warrior was about half the height and girth of the altogether rather monumental bandit, she remained steadily and furiously planted above him. "What the hell are you doing?" she demanded, keeping her knife to his throat.

"I'm sorry I was trying to wake her up I just did something silly and may have caused the end of many children's lives and please don't kill me!" said Donghai in a single breath, still squeaking a bit.

Amefuri stood, one leg on either side of Donghai, still holding the knife threateningly.

"What do you mean you've caused the end of the children's lives?" asked Reishun in alarm, pushing aside the covers she had been sleeping under to stand as well.

"I mean... well, you know what I said about the bandit leaders wanting to overthrow Takashi?" Donghai looked expectantly at them both. "That's happening tomorrow - I mean today, early in the morning, once they recover from the stuff I put in the barrels of sake _hahaha-_ but I," he added hastily, as Amefuri began to look rather threatening, "heard them talking at the campfire and they had decided to kill the children, because Takashi has been training them, and they thought that's a good way to send a message to everyone else-"

Reishun had scarcely begun to wrap her head around the terrible, completely cruel idea, when Amefuri heaved a huge quantity of hay over her legs. She had brought her weapons into the old stables on the first night after they'd been assigned the space, explaining that she didn't want them getting rusty and spoiled in the rain. At the time, Reishun had thought she was being a little dramatic and over-prepared, but it had turned out to be plainly good thinking.

"Here," she said, throwing a shortish sword in a sheath expertly to Reishun's side. "Though you'd do better with a hammer."

Reishun sighed, but said nothing. She was deeply ashamed about what she had said in the night, and her dreams had still left her shaken. A niggle pressed against her temples, threatening to bloom into an all out headache.

"Oy," said Donghai, as though starting to say something else, but by now Amefuri had pulled on her quiver, full of freshly sharpened arrows, and sheathed her own sword. "Hey, wait," he said, now sounding a bit alarmed.

She stuck her knife into her boot and straightened up. "Let's go," she said, heading to the door without waiting for the other two to catch up.

"Oy! Wait!" said Donghai, as Amefuri reached the door.

"WHAT?" she whirled around, glaring at him. "It's almost dawn; they're going to kill them aren't they-?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm telling you! I brought them here."

In all the time that Reishun had known her, she had not known anything to wipe the anger off Amefuri's face quite as effectively as this. Despite her alarm, she had the most absurd urge to laugh. "You brought them here?!" demanded Amefuri, still looking stuck between various emotions, something between alarm, awe and incredulity. "Here?!"

"Well, yeah," said Donghai, seriously. "They were going to kill them."

"How!? How did you, of all people-"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," said Donghai, rolling his eyes. "I'm a big and scary bandit, you know, most people fear me. Revere me. I can cart a bunch of children around just fine."

There were several bruises on his face that indicated the children in question had been pummeling the big, scary, revered bandit. Reishun cleared her throat, trying not to be amused. It was after all a very serious situation. "So where are they? What did you do with them?!" demanded Reishun.

"I didn't DO anything with them, damn it, why do the two of you think I'm-"

"Donghai!" said Amefuri and Reishun, together, and then looked very annoyed about it.

"Well, that's the problem," said Donghai, his indignation giving way to worry. "I... I thought Shiori would take care of them. She had promised to take them in and care for them, you know, she said it would be a way to bring in more followers. But now she thinks," Donghai paused, and Reishun could see the sense of horror and defeat on his face. "Well, she thinks they're going to betray her too. That they've been turned by Takashi against her and this is some kind of ruse. So she's going to execute them as well."

Reishun's blood ran cold as he said these words. Shiori had not ever seemed particularly warm and inviting as a person, but this Reishun had not expected. Neither had Donghai, by the look of betrayal on his face.

"You've got to help me," he was pleading. "I screwed up, I know, I should have known better, but those kids - they're just children and-"

"Shut up," said Amefuri, but didn't sound angry at all. If anything, she sounded a bit shaken as well. Reishun looked at her to find her looking grim and determined. "Where are they?"

"In the forest behind her house," said Donghai. "She's just gone to rouse her commanders. We have to get them out of there-"

Amefuri had already opened the door. "Let's go," she said, her voice cool and calm.

* * *

A great fire was roaring by the time Hikari got back to the village, wearing Batu's old clothes and feeling a lot more fortified against the cold. Although a strange, healing kind of exhaustion was seeping in her bones, she felt almost refreshed, as though the hot springs had healed her aches and pains, at least physically.

Emotionally, she felt battered. She had spent much of her time in the cave in silence after Batu had conceded to give her a name, but it had been hard. As the knots in her body unwound, her grief seemed to find new routes to the surface, and Batu's ready, compassionate presence had been very difficult to resist. Though the woman had said almost nothing, Hikari felt as though she had been through a war. Her defenses were exhausted, her fortifications battered, and she was strangely empty, hollow on the inside.

The village that Tomite and Hikitsu lived in was small; the stone houses just about high enough to accommodate a grown man inside, with small slivers of windows that could keep the cold out comfortably. There were twelve houses or so, all built in a rough circle, at the center of which there was a permanent looking fireplace. Here the fire was blazing almost in anticipation of her return. People were moving around, seemingly in the process of organising dinner. Four or five rather excited children were running around in the snow and falling over one another. And someone was playing a violin somewhere in the vicinity. There was a bustling energy about the place, and she couldn't help but feel welcome, soothed.

This was of course until Tomite landed with a surprising lack of grace by her feet, seemingly having tripped over something and not looking terribly bothered about it. "Feeling better?!" he demanded, sounding rather rude for someone who was inquiring after her wellbeing. "We should talk about this Shinzaho of Suzaku thi-"

"TOMITE!" yelled Batu, shocking Hikari into jumping. "You're asking her if she's okay, not INTERROGATING HER. Get on with you!" She chased him off with a solid knock on the head. "Sorry about him, he has no idea what manners are. God knows I've tried to beat it into him, but some nuts are rather tough."

"That's true," said Hikari, looking at the roaring fire with some trepidation. It was tempting, so sorely tempting that she knew she had to get going. And if Nyan Nyan was going to continue to be a tough nut of her own variety, then Hikari would just have to go on by herself. "I mean he does seem... nutty." Realising that calling someone's son a nutcase after such kindness was really little rude, Hikari backtracked. "I mean he's fine, it's okay, it doesn't matter, it-"

Batu patted her on the arm, smiling quite kindly. "Oh it's fine. He's been a brat ever since he was born. It took him two whole days and a night to come out of me, you know."

Hikari, who could not have known this any more than she could have anticipated that this piece of information would be dropped into the conversation, shrugged. "Um, sure. I... Look I should go. I'm sorry for the trouble. I mean I thank you - I really do, and I... I should just get going now. I have a long way to go."

"It's too dark now," said Batu, shaking her head and looking worried. "Stay the night, won't you? We usually sit around the fire and sing and tell stories and eat together. You could use some rest, and it would be so much easier for me to let you leave if you left in the daytime."

Something was beginning to occur to Hikari, something that she hadn't realised until now. It was remarkably unusual for the time period and land for a lone girl to be traveling like this. She had also told Tomite and Hikitsu that she was the Shinzaho of Suzaku, and that kind of thing usually led to a lot of questions. True, she had basically had a panic attack at the slightest hint of questions, but they were still all being remarkably calm about the matter. There was no suspicion or horror. This, to Hikari, could mean only one of two things: either they were completely trusting fools who believed anything - and looking at Batu's gleaming black eyes she could not believe that at all - or they weren't really planning to let her go at all.

"Maybe we can even help you. You could tell the boys what you're looking for and maybe they could help. You know," Batu said, a little pointedly as Hikari opened her mouth to argue. "You know they have waited for this all their lives. They are the reincarnated spirits of two Genbu Seishi. Legends of their deeds in their past lives used to echo across this land. They died to save the country, and their spirits stayed behind to protect the Shinzaho of Genbu, until the Suzaku no Miko came to retrieve them, two hundred years later..."

"...oh," said Hikari, raising both eyebrows slightly. "Do they remember anything about that?"

"Well, no," said Batu, as Hikari struggled not to look disappointed. "They don't remember much from their past lives. But their spirits are very connected with the cause of the four gods; they don't really respond to their given names here. And they've been waiting for the longest time, thinking another priestess would come, and when they found you..."

"But I'm not a priestess," said Hikari, feeling trapped. "I don't think there will be any priestesses. I told them that."

"Yes. But they said that, well, you are Shinzaho of Suzaku. Are you? How can you be a god object, when you are ... alive, living?" Batu sounded almost as though she was thinking out loud now.

"I shouldn't have said that," said Hikari, truly beginning to feel as though she would never get out, that all these well-meaning people would never let her leave, and in the process die for her. "It doesn't matter."

"It does matter," said Batu, keenly. "But you're protecting something. I don't know what it is. Look," she said, clearing her throat and looking rather brisk all of a sudden. "I don't know what you're doing here. I know the boys want to help you, and I can see you don't want their help. But the truth is, you don't have to deal with all of that right now. Wouldn't it be better to rest and then start out for wherever you are heading tomorrow morning, more healed, more whole...?" She paused, frowning at Hikari. "You know we don't even know your name."

Hikari did look up at this, surprised and more than a little ashamed to realise this was true. She had not introduced herself. They had shown her infinite kindness and she was just as much of a stranger to them as they were to her. But the truth was that she didn't want to be healed and whole, and that she would leave tonight, even if it meant leaving in the dead of the night, even if after everything Batu had done for her, it seemed ungrateful to simply quit without ceremony. She had to leave; Eian and the creepy little girl couldn't be too far behind. But she found that she didn't have the energy, or the heart, to argue with her anymore.

"Hikari," said Hikari, and nodded. Something in her twisted at the idea of lying to the woman with the kind eyes and gentle voice. But in a strange way, it was almost relieving to claim some power over the situation, which felt like it was rapidly getting out of hand. "I'll stay."

The children were exactly where Donghai said they would be, huddled together in the cold morning just outside the village boundaries, behind Shiori's house. They had no idea, Donghai told them, that they were about to be executed, but they looked scared nonetheless. They were all rather young, most of them were boys though some were girls, and none could be older than ten. Some looked defiant, cocky against a general sense of tension.

Amefuri, who had been peering out to assess the situation, drew back and crouched down beside Donghai and Reishun, who were waiting in the shrubbery. "There's only one guard," she said. "I can take him out, but we need to get them out of there without much ruckus. Can you do that somehow?" She looked expectantly at the two of them.

Donghai and Reishun exchanged a glance. "You mean ask them to leave quietly?" asked Donghai, raising an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Okay, well," said Amefuri, clearing her throat, and looking vaguely awkward. "Good. Silence will help. The two of you can stick with the kids, and I'll come up behind you, okay? Don't stop for me if I fall behind-"

"I'll come with you," said Reishun, suddenly, beginning to feel oddly nervous, and maybe a little nauseous as well. There was something unnerving about a plan so succinct that it left so much to the imagination, many blank spaces for errors in judgment and bad spur-of-the-moment decisions to fill.

"No, one of us should stick with the kids. And that should be you, I don't like children," added Amefuri, almost as an afterthought.

"I'm astounded," said Donghai, dryly.

Amefuri didn't bother looking at him at all. "Okay, let's go now," she said, standing to take aim with her bow.

Donghai crept away, surprising Reishun with how silently he could move. For a rather large man, Donghai was rather elegant - almost graceful, really, and stepped on as few dried leaves and twigs as possible. "I," began Reishun, feeling unendingly awkward as she stood there, trying to articulate why she was nervous and worried suddenly. The truth was she had no idea. She knew Amefuri could take care of herself, but awkwardness lingered from the previous night and she didn't want to walk into a potentially dangerous situation without saying something. In the end, she elected to say, "Be careful," and walked away before Amefuri could respond.

Donghai had managed to communicate to one of the older kids by the time she got to where he was standing, although it took a lot of elaborate hand-waving and gestures. As Reishun joined him, the young boy nodded and turned to his companions to pass on the message. There were about twenty of them, Reishun counted, and as the message spread through the little group, most of them turned to look at Donghai, who tried expressively to tell them to turn away.

An arrow whizzed through the air and found its mark. Even as the lookout fell, Donghai darted forward and started to usher the children into the forest. "Come on, come on, come on," he said, looking like he was herding a bunch of rebellious sheep. "Quietly now, okay? We've got to go - no, Hachiro-chan, I can't answer your questions right now. Hurry hurry-"

But he didn't need to act the part of the anxious shepherd, it seemed. The children had become rather aware of that something had gone wrong, and they moved quickly enough, even though several of them stopped to stare at Reishun with interest and a little girl asked Donghai if she was his wife. The sky provided them with a cover of darkness though it was no longer raining, as though having a space to direct her aggression had calmed Amefuri down a bit, for it was no longer raining. Several long moments of running later, Reishun turned to find Amefuri a few yards behind them, and was reassured. She was beginning to think that they had done it, escaped without any trouble, when the alarm sounded and a huge shout went up behind them.

"Run!" snapped Amefuri, catching up with them, though they were already doing the best they could. Their short legs, Reishun realised, were not likely to take them very far.

It was terrible, running like that, in complete silence, surrounded by twenty terrified children. A suspenseful silence fell after the shout that went up behind them, punctuated only by the sounding of little feet racing across the forest floor, and Reishun's thoughts about how they had no idea where they were going, how little ten-year-old legs could not hope to outrun large men on horses and how there were only three of them standing between Shiori's forces and the children. They came upon a large fallen tree, which the children seemed unable to cross. Reishun obliged them by lifting up the huge tree trunk - it was heavy even for her, holding on until they had passed through, all now thoroughly interested in her.

"Oneechan is strong!" said the girl who had wanted to know if Reishun was Donghai's wife.

"That's very true," said Reishun, smiling a little too brightly. "Keep running, okay? Stay close to Donghai!"

* * *

All the families in the village turned up for the bonfire, a great way to stay warm, eat and drink some homemade rice wine. As Tomite, who had decided to sit next to Hikari and "keep her company" by setting up a relentless stream of babble, informed her, this was hardly as fancy as Sairou's finest "crap" but did the trick just fine. He explained that they supplemented their earnings from their trade with game from the forest, though as winter descended, this too would dwindle, but they shared what they had every night, so at least the children did not go hungry.

"Why don't you move further south?" asked Hikari, eating her stew and dumplings with a certain ferocity and a total lack of shame about it.

Tomite made a sound caught between a huff and a snort, rather like a disgruntled horse. "They don't want us down there," he said, shrugging. "To them, we are Donghu or Beihu. Nomadic barbarians. Hokkan has always been quite different the other three countries. So!" he announced in the same breath, with the air of changing the subject meaningfully. "Where are you coming from? Your clothes looked Southern..."

"Kounan," said Hikari shortly.

"Well, figures, with the Shinzaho business and everything," added Tomite, his eyes gleaming. He had a way of steamrolling through to the point, Hikari had to give him that, like a very decisive bull. Or ass. And there was in his eyes a certain excitement that was undeniable, a stubborn fury that indicated he was a warrior trapped in the wrong profession. His skills with his bow were also significant but wasted on things like dinner, which he had announced a few moments ago that he had caught. She could almost feel his slightly jittery anticipation, his excitement at the idea of having something to fight for, somewhere to put his energy.

Well, fine. He could deal with that. Hikari, as she had decided, would be off in a few hours.

"About the Shinzaho thing," pressed Tomite, presently, as Hikari had just as stubbornly not responded to his unspoken questions, "how come you're a god-object? I mean it is usually an object."

"Yes," said Hikari, after a moment, aware that this was no answer at all.

Tomite narrowed his eyes at her and huffed in frustration. "Why are you being so stubborn?"

"Why are you being so nosy?" demanded Hikari, now beginning to feel irritated. "Am I asking you every single thing about you? No. Get a clue."

"But we're the Genbu Seishi," said Tomite, apparently not cognizant of rudeness at all, whether it was his own or another's. "We're supposed to help you."

"How do you figure that?" asked Hikari, raising an eyebrow. "A few hours ago you thought you were supposed to be waiting for a priestess. And you don't know me. I could be lying, for all you know. Why are you so eager to believe that I'm here to lead you to a stupid, dangerous mission all over Hokkan and god knows where else?!"

"Hello!" announced a deep voice behind them, punctuating her question with a subtle lack of drama. Hikari, who was feeling rather like a disgruntled horse herself, turned to find Hikitsu standing with a Chinese violin. He stepped neatly between the two of them and sat down. "Music?"

"No," growled Tomite, glaring at him. "You're not helping. She's not saying anything!"

"She will tell us," said Hikitsu, "if and when she feels ready to."

"Which is never," added Hikari, equally unhelpfully.

It was with some difficulty that she shut up and focused on her stew now. The sense of being trapped was not leaving, and along with that was another feeling, more inexplicable and confusing: the sense of guilt, and second-guessing, and internal confusion. Was she really being stubborn and not letting people who were supposed to help know what was happening? Did she really think she would be able to do this on her own?

Nyan Nyan was really nowhere to be found, as though trying to really drive home the idea that Hikari needed to learn to be polite by giving her an exaggerated demi-goddess deluxe sulky version of the silent treatment. So how would she do it on her own...? But then there was the fire, and the fact that the last time she had failed to take ownership of her own task...

Hikari closed her eyes tightly, trying to get away from the thought. A few moments later, Hikitsu - who had evidently won the glaring context he had been having with Tomite - started playing the erhu, a plaintive, wailing sound that nonetheless brought her back. It was almost frustrating at first, as though there was one more thing she had to focus on. But then the sound became the focus on her attention, and that seemed to wash away all the other annoying, terrifying, sorrowful thoughts.

For the first time, Hikari looked at Hikitsu and took in the sight of him. He was tall, to say the least, taller than her by at least a head and a half, and his long legs folded like a long legged spider's may have - slightly awkward to look at and yet contained, elegant in a way. He seemed to be extremely aware of himself and his surroundings, rather a lot more in focus than Tomite, whose movements seemed unpredictable, in a coordinated sort of way, even to himself.

And he used his music elegantly as well, with a measure of control. She noted how though he had started out with a plaintive, almost painful sort of ballad, he shifted as her mood shifted (or was it the other way around?) to something more light heated, light-footed almost... the notes seemed to dance. Despite her strong wish not to, Hikari felt herself cheer up.

"You know," she said, presently, looking at his eye patch, "where I come from that's a sign for being a pirate."

Hikitsu looked at her and smiled, slightly wistfully. "I wear it to protect people from my power," he said. "I can remind them of their most painful memories. Most people don't like to think about that."

Hikari was sobered quite abruptly. Could there not be a moment where she didn't have to think about it? "I guess not," was all she could say.

The music twisted and turned again, the notes slowing down a little, and then stretching into a story about long roads and distant lands. Hikari noticed a hush fall around the fire, as though people were anticipating a story as well. "I know you don't want to talk about yourself," said the Genbu Seishi, looking into the fire now. "But would you like to hear the story of our people, of the Kei Tribe?"

The five raucous children had drawn up, and Hikari had the idea that Hikitsu was something of a story teller. She could understand their attraction to him. Compared to most others in the tribe - and perhaps compared most specifically to Tomite - he was rather... well, _cool_. His eye patch, his air of mystery, his easy confidence in everything he seemed to do and the beautiful music he produced would draw anyone to him.

_"A long time ago, our people lived beyond the frozen lands of the gods to the north, beyond the reaches of Hokkan, near the edge of the world. It is said that even now, the borders between heaven and earth is very thin here. In those ancient times, we were a pure people, living off the offerings of the land in harmony with gods and goddesses, with whom we communicated with the help of the divine messengers, called the Qomio. _

_"They were divine helpers, who could pass between worlds. They could swim in the ocean as Shachi, enormous demon-like fish who could communicate with the divine beings in the ocean. When they had heard the messages of the gods, they walked amongst human beings in their animal form: as Okami. They brought our people health, wisdom and prosperity._

_"But soon, the shores of the land by the northern sea became too cold for human beings, and the lands of the gods began to freeze over. We prayed to the Qomio, our divine protectors, for help. In their Shachi form, they told us to follow them through the dark waters of the north. Some of us stayed behind, fearful of the water - for it is not for humans to traverse in the realm of the gods. But the Qomio protected those who trusted them. _

_"For many months, we travelled on our wooden boats. The Qomio would bring us little fish to feast on, but even so, many of our kind perished. Finally, they brought us to the monstrous mouth of the mighty Hanun River where it meets the sea. We travelled on land, along the river, moving upstream until we reached Hokkan, our spirit guides following in their Okami forms. _

_"Our people used to journey to the river every winter from the north. For several centuries we prospered with the gifts of the river which sustained us, guided by the Okami. _

_"But an evil touched the river three hundred years ago, and famine, plague and death came upon the land. The river was ran red with the blood of those who were killed in battle, slowly growing darker, until it was black and poisonous from the dead bodies it claimed. The river was once known as the Hanun River, and now known only as the Heihe... Black River._

_"We have since then settled here, in this southern part of Hokkan, rearing sheep and trading our small products. We can no longer live off the land alone and we have not returned to the north since the summoning of Genbu. The river is poisoned - it cuts us off from the rest of the country."_

The _erhu_ stopped suddenly, jolting Hikari out of the dreamlike space she had fallen into, breaking the spell over the crowd. Hikitsu put away the instrument, seemingly not bothered by everyone's slight awkwardness. He stared at the fire rather peaceably until someone giggled nervously. The energy of the group seemed to scatter, as people burst into conversation and laughter. On the other side of the fire, an old woman started to sing. Someone - Batu, most likely - called Tomite away and he departed, grumbling.

Hikari was intrigued by synergy of the gathering - the organic, unspoken agreements. Perhaps this was because it was a clan, a group of people connected with one another, symbiotically linked, each a part of a whole. Hikari had not experienced anything quite like it, her own family being nuclear and quite happy for it. Maybe that was why she found their questions intrusive; they were so used to sharing everything with one another that they were not able to imagine someone who wasn't so used to it.

"Why did you tell me that story?" asked Hikari, looking at Hikitsu. Then, reconsidering her question, she asked, "How much of it is true?"

"How much of any story is true?" asked Hikitsu. He cast a glance at Tomite, who was in the process of being told off by his mother, and then looked back at Hikari, looking as though he was deliberating on his words. "Maybe," he said, slowly, "where you come from, this would be a kind of story."

Hikari stared at him, taken aback. He knew. He knew about the Shi Jin Ten Chi Sho. "How do you-"

"I have a good memory," he said, smiling. "I remember more than Tomite does of our past life."

"Why?" asked Hikari, blinking. She hadn't thought about it before but it was true that different Seishi seemed to remember different measures of their lives. Reishun remembered some, Eian significantly more and Amefuri none at all. "Why do you remember more?"

"I am not sure," said Hikitsu, shrugging elegantly. "Tomite has always been prone to... looking ahead more than he looks behind." Hikari cleared her throat. She could believe that. "I also do have a special vision," he added, tapping the side of his patched eye.

"Why are you telling me this?" asked Hikari, after a second of absorbing this. She felt oddly pressured by his lack of expectation and seeming willingness to share. "I don't understand why you're all so willing to trust me. I could be plotting to rob you of your all wealth and possessions and run off in the middle of the night!" Never mind that half of that was actually true.

If Hikitsu was suspicious, he did not show it. In fact, he ignored the latter part of her speech entirely. "I'm not sure why I'm telling you this," he said, casting another deliberate look at Tomite. "It's not something I've told anyone. I don't particularly trust you. I don't even know you. But it's nice to share stories, and ... maybe tomorrow you will share yours."

"Yeah," said Hikari, not looking at him, and trying to shake the feeling that he could see through her lie. "Maybe tomorrow."

* * *

The yells were now getting closer, and Reishun could hear the horses' hooves thudding loudly on the forest floor. Or perhaps it was just her imagination playing tricks on her now, her fears manifesting into sounds. A moment later, as the first arrow whizzed through the air and planted itself next to her head in a tree, she realised it was not her imagination at all.

They were upon them, all carrying swords that gleamed in the silvery grey light that was now opening up in the sky. The children realised this a moment later, and suddenly the forest was full of their terrified screams and yells. There was the sound of another arrow whizzing, and Reishun grabbed the nearest boy to duck.

But as she looked behind, she realised that it was one of the horsemen chasing them who had fallen. Amefuri, crouched behind a rock, took aim again, released another arrow that found its mark just as she had drawn another.

"Go," said Reishun, to the boy, who ran after the rest of the group. Reishun turned in time to realise just how badly outnumbered they were. There were at least twenty horsemen in the forest, not counting the two Amefuri had already struck. She got three more, as Reishun doubled back, aware that she was doing exactly what she had been told not to do. But there was something infinitely terrifying about the image of Amefuri crouched behind the rock preparing to fight twenty men on horses, with no cover to speak of.

"What the hell are you doing?!" demanded the Byakko Seishi, predictably annoyed by Reishun's decision to return.

"If we can't stop them, they don't have a chance," said Reishun, praying she had made the right decision. There was no time to think about it at all, though, as a surprising number of men poured into the clearing. There were not as many men as there had been in the forest the day Hikari had been taken - just enough for Reishun to be certain that this attack was completely real.

Amefuri, snarling, stood and took aim again. Her movements were fluid, swift and exactly as elegant as they had been the first time Reishun had seen her fight. But the men were pouring into the forest. Reishun, for lack of better ideas, picked up large rocks and took aim as well. This worked surprisingly well, all things considered, and she successfully knocked two men off their horses by striking them in the head.

But more poured in, leaving Reishun completely bewildered. There was no need for so many, no need at all, considering it was only children they were after. She drew her sword as she ran out of rocks, and the wave of horsemen came altogether too close. She slashed out wildly, striking the horse instead of its rider, and the beast went down, landing heavily on its rider and crushing him. Reishun, who had never killed so deliberately, was momentarily thrown, but Amefuri grabbed her by the shoulder and physically pulled her awareness back to the next onslaught.

Later, Reishun would have a vague recollection of the battle as a space where they had been attacked, bombarded even, by large men and their horses, who came upon them in quick succession. She would remember that Amefuri saved her several times, but also know clearly that if she hadn't been there, the Byakko Seishi would have been overcome fairly early on, given the sheer number of people Shiori had sent after the children.

As it happened, they were both on the verge of collapse when arrows flew from behind their heads to catch their assailants in the heart. Reishun didn't quite know what was happening, but knew that these were, if not friends, then enemies of their enemies, and were here to help them. There were four marksmen that Reishun counted, all of whom were on horses, dressed in plain black clothes which bore no symbols or signs to identify them.

They dragged them both up by the arms and told them to run, and covered them as they ran, shooting arrows back at would-be assailants. They ran for what felt like hours, and certainly there was more light in the forest by the time they stopped. Reishun listened but could not hear any more hooves thudding against the ground, any more followers. As her heart caught up with her, she sat heavily onto the forest putting her head into her hands, only to realise they were coated in the blood of the steed she had slaughtered. She made it to the tree before she threw up.

A warm hand placed itself in the center of her back, holding her steady as her body expelled the nervousness and fear of the last few hours, and though she did not know who it was, it was a presence that was warm, safe, and slightly intrusive. A shadow of recognition passed in her mind, but it wasn't until she turned to look at the highly lined and wrinkled face of the Shen Wu of the Hei Xiong Ren that she recognised who it was.

"Miao Jian!" she gasped.

He smiled, and his face stretched out like wrinkled parchment. "We meet again, Reishun-sama," he said, in his deep, rich voice. "You're safe now."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Two chapters in a day! All of this was written two years ago for Nanowrimo, and I'm only just getting around to getting it out. Whoops. Anyway, more soon!


	7. 06 The Blind Girl

**Chapter Six**

**The Blind Girl**

"We were attacked," explained the Shenwu, once they were seated around a small fire.

Though the cloudy skies did not allow them to discern what time it was, the dull light grey mistiness of the day was giving way to a dull dark grey fogginess. In general, it seemed as though the sun was setting and the time of the day was finally going to reflect the colour of Amefuri's mood.

"Not long after you left, a few days after the Black Dragon rose, one of the parts of the nine-headed beast found us. She has long dwelled in the waters of the rivers, a corrupting, blackening influence, causing hitherto mighty life-giving rivers to turn into streams of poison and water no longer suitable for anything. She found us through the Shoryuu, and attacked in the night."

"We saw your camp," said Amefuri, grimly and rather bluntly. "We thought you'd all died."

"We did lose some of our finest," said the Shenwu, his lined face reflecting deep sorrow.

"And your home," added Reishun.

The Shenwu looked a bit puzzled at this suggestion. "We did not lose our home," he said, frowning. "You cannot lose a place you never ... owned."

Donghai, sitting across from the Shenwu and Reishun, squinted at the man, not sure if he was being interesting or just strangely vague. It was true that these Black Bear people had arrived just in the nick of time and saved all of their lives. But since then it had been a lot of walking and talking, and not much of it felt clear to Donghai. He was not fond of vagueness and disclaimers. Oh, he enjoyed a good metaphor every now and again, but when it came down to it, he really preferred clarity and directness. No point beating about the bush.

"So are you nomads?" he asked, keeping his voice as polite as he could. There was a lot of coldness, irritation and unnecessarily acerbic crap going around in the camp, mostly bouncing from Amefuri to Reishun and back, and everyone was getting caught in the crossfire. He was determined to be as reasonable and civil as was possible. Not to mention that he was still responsible for twenty children - who had been firmly seated around a different fire and were now being fed by the rather disgruntled ninja-type warriors who were not scouting the woods around them.

"In a manner of speaking," said the Shenwu. "Those caves were our home for the longest time. Since the nine-headed beast has released almost all the clasps placed on her, we decided that it was best to move. Some of our tribe - women, children and old soldiers mostly - have shifted to a different village. But our tribe has tracked and battled the nine-headed beast too long to not participate in the battle against her."

"Wait, what does that mean?" asked Donghai, determined to speak in clear sentences and get things sorted. "Who is this nine-headed beast person, that snake that Miss Wu Ming killed in the woods?"

The Shenwu smiled at his eagerness, the lines on his face stretching out as he did so. "I can trust you," he said, with a hint of delight and warmth. Donghai wondered how he may have reacted if he had though he wasn't trustable. "You seem clean at heart. Why else would you rescue all these children-"

"Nearly got them killed," added Amefuri, and Donghai had to admit this was quite true. He looked over at Amefuri and sighed. She was sitting a few paces away on a rock as though determined not to join any circles or spaces that could stand as a metaphor for camaraderie and warmth. Her loss, really, for it was pretty cold that morning. The cloudy skies, grumbling overhead occasionally, made it impossible for the meager warmth of the winter sun to reach the ground, and as a result, everything was grey. The small fire they had built too seemed dull, as though its colours had faded.

"Your heart is in the right place," said the Shenwu, "and that is what matters. "So I will tell you the truth, though I urge you not to share this indiscriminately. The nine-headed beast is a creature we, the Black Bear people, have fought for centuries. Thousands of years ago, she was most likely a shaman, like myself, who ventured too far towards the realm of the gods. It is difficult to say what she wanted, but she had dark desires at the core of her being - desires to gain power, not to rule, but to destroy the balance of heaven and earth as we know it."

"Why?" asked Donghai again, feeling a bit stupid. He was missing something, clearly. "Why would anyone want to destroy the balance? Isn't it more self-serving to want to take over the heavens or so...?"

"It is not for us to know why she is operating in the way that she is," said the Shenwu, looking strained. "We can only put together the pieces of the puzzles that we are aware of. We know that thousands of years ago, when she violated the natural laws of heaven and earth, the gods split her being into nine pieces. Some of those fragments are human - like the commander of Sairou's forces, who is conspiring with the Black Dragon, or so it seems anyway. Those fragments can only be reunited once the sacred scroll that binds our universe together, the treatise of the gods, is destroyed."

"I don't understand," said Donghai, in what he felt was a dramatic understatement. "You just said she has released the clasps-"

"Not all," said the Shenwu. "Or she would have known the pain of integration and become a whole being. If you think the Black Dragon, who she has fooled, is powerful, you have no notion of how terrible the nine-headed beast can be. For as a shaman and a wise woman, she is powerful on earth; and in her dealings with the gods, she had become powerful in heaven. She is a channel, you see, by nature able to traverse between the worlds. Without the bounds of natural laws, she could rule or destroy as she saw fit.

"I imagine that this is why you are moving, to find the final copy of the book - the one your warrior friend was seeking," he said to Reishun, who scowled. "The one, I think, you are seeking now..."

"Do you know anything about it?" asked Amefuri, still seated very quietly - deceptively demure, Donghai thought - on the rock and listening very intently. "We have heard nothing but rumblings and stories from old crones..."

"Unfortunately, we are guided by little else. There are two tales that offer some clues about the whereabouts of the final - and I think original - manuscript. There is the tale about an old man who travelled to the east, towards the rising sun, who was the first writer. He learned how to write on oracle bones and brought the art back to our lands. And so we too are travelling to the east, though there is just as good a chance that we find it in Hokkan - the oldest and most magical of the four kingdoms. East is our best guess, however, I think. She has already corrupted so many rivers and towns in Hokkan. Are you then willing," he added, looking from Amefuri to Reishun rather cautiously, "to travel together with us for a while?"

Donghai looked away, feeling as he sometimes did with the two women, that he was rather out of his element. The best anyone could have said about him, really, was that he was an honest bandit, which was truly not saying too much on the whole. He was not sure where he was going, or what he would do with the twenty children now that he had rescued them. No one really talked about these parts of rescue missions. Heroes swept in and out of dangerous situations, getting away unscathed and looking pretty cool. Not often did people comment on why the hero in question was such a doofus that he needed to go barge into dangerous situations all the time, or what he did with the rescued damsels and children afterwards.

"What about these children?" asked Reishun, voicing his fears for him. "And Donghai? We can't very well keep dragging him into dangerous situations all the time."

Donghai smiled. He could appreciate how considerate she was being, given that not long ago, she had knocked him into a cauldron and tied him up herself. He did seem to be getting into an unusual amount of trouble, even for a bandit. But he certainly wasn't about to take a step back from the fight. Not to mention-

"Seems like he's creating them for himself," snapped Amefuri, tossing them all a contemptuous look and going back to glaring at an unfortunate squirrel.

"She's right," said Donghai, smiling despite the acerbic nature of Amefuri's words. "This was my doing. And," he added, as Reishun opened her mouth to argue, mostly because she seemed unable to not rise to Amefuri's baits, "I want to come along. Once we can find a safe place for the children, that is."

"We can take the children to Chouhou," said the Shenwu, presently, looking at Donghai. "I can think of a few orphanages who would take them in. Though it isn't the best solution..."

"No," said Donghai, shaking his head. It truly wasn't. The harsh and horrible truth was most of these children were already orphans, and those who hadn't been before were now likely to be, in the outbreak of the skirmish at Takeshi's camp. "It isn't. But it is the best we have."

"I'll come with you," said Amefuri, a little surprisingly. It seemed that something about the children seemed to propel her into something that almost resembled humanity. Then, she turned to Reishun. "You can stay here and recover," she threw at her, sounding like she was saying something altogether rude. As she stood, Donghai blinked.

"Do you mean NOW?" he asked, suddenly alarmed.

"Once they have eaten," said Amefuri, still sounding like she was holding back on a rude name or two at the end of her proclamation. "Do you have something better to do?" She turned to stalk off, leaving Donghai to resonate with Reishun's rather hurt and shaken expression. The whole thing was moving quickly, as he knew it must, but it left him with a sense of worry. What would happen to those children - he had to struggle not to think of them as "his" children - if they left them at the capital? It wasn't as though the city was particularly better off as compared to the rest of the country. He wanted more time, more sureness, to know that he would not be leaving them to die or get caught in another political skirmish amongst the claimants to the throne.

"I am coming too," said Reishun, snapping him out of his reverie, to no one in particular, sounding almost a bit defiant. As he turned to look at the rather pretty girl, looking prone and more than a little sulky, he began to consider the possibility that for all her efficiency and intuition, she had missed the boat with Amefuri a bit.

* * *

Long after the last song had been sung and the last dance danced, Hikari found herself lying in bed with her eyes deliberately wide and open. Nyan Nyan was curled up next to her, a small warm bundle under the blankets. Snow fell on the little village again that night, and the prospect of stepping out into the cold again was terrible.

But tempting as it was to stay, though, Hikari could not get the music and laughter out of her mind. She couldn't bear to think of what it would be like if the Black Dragon swept in over them. It would take him no time at all to eviscerate everything, their hopes and dreams, their laughter. She could hear Batu snoring in the next room, a gentle, grumbly almost welcoming sound that reminded her of home as well.

It was with a lot of effort that she straightened up, pushing the blankets off herself and reaching for the coat Batu had offered to give her in exchange for the monstrous coat she had stolen, which Batu thought would fit one of Tomite's cousins. As she turned to wake Nyan Nyan up, she noticed something outside the window, something small and still and unmoving, only barely silhouetted in the light of the fire.

Hikari's heart turned to ice, and she knew, even before she rose from the bed, that it was the little blind girl.

The little girl stood very still on the frozen ground. Hikari didn't know how, but she was starkly aware that the girl was watching her without sight, watching her in a way that was somehow all the more terrifying.

The little girl was dressed in a frail sort of coat that looked like it was too short for her. She must have stolen it from some child somewhere. Her feet were burrowed within the snow and it seemed as though she had been standing there for a long time, not ten feet from the window of the house where Hikari slept, watching...

Hikari rose carefully from the cot, keeping her eyes firmly on the little girl. A part of her wanted to scream - in terror and as a warning. If she was here, certainly, no good could come of it. But for some reason, she walked to the window and watched the tiny figure instead. She wasn't sure what the different parts of the nine-headed beast could do or if she had any extraordinary powers.

But, if she did have some powers, wouldn't she have used them by now? Hadn't Hikari been more vulnerable than this in the last few weeks...?

Later, Hikari wouldn't be able to say what had made her do it, but she was suddenly determined to ask her what she was up to. Was she going to kill her or just watch her?

The part of her that was terrified resisted mightily, setting up a mental diatribe of "BAD IDEA, BAD EFFING IDEA HIKARI YOU DUMDUM" in her mind, and her heart pounded. But she was oddly drawn to the girl. She thought briefly of waking Nyan Nyan, or Batu, or Tomite. But she knew what they would do - call the little girl "evil" (Hikari had to admit that this was probably true) and drive her away, or worse, while Nyan Nyan sobbed. She felt almost defensive against the idea, protective, as she had felt protective of her rage and grief and hatred.

It was so cold that Hikari nearly cried herself, mostly from the memory of her horrifying experiences the night before. How could the little girl be standing there in the snow like that?! Then another thought occurred to her. Had the little girl followed her in those clothes in the snowstorm as well?

As the girl turned her head to place her iris-less eyes on Hikari, her mind offered her some nasty suggestions. Maybe she's not really alive and so she doesn't feel much. Maybe she's a zombie, an undead child who likes to feast on human flesh. Maybe she's only here for your eyes, and will gouge them out to eat them. How do you think she got that coat from the other child in the first place? Hikari almost moaned, but reminded herself, against the images of scary, zombie-esque, flesh-eating children, that Commander Xiang had burned, burned like flesh and blood, and that Hong Jiu had sweated all over the corridor of the Palace at Eiyou, leaving behind an aroma she had sensed even though she had only been there in a dreamscape.

Still, her hands shook rather violently as she stepped up to the girl, almost expecting her to lunge at Hikari or scream or do something hideous. She was about four feet away from her when she decided this was close enough for comfort, though she had no idea what she was about to do.

Up close she could see the girl's face more clearly. She was not, as Hikari had imagined, possessed with porcelain white skin, scarily unblemished. If anything, the blemishes seemed real, and oddly human. Around her eyes were jagged scars, now faded to white. They were vicious, imprecise, and, Hikari realised with a jolt, had clearly been made by human nails. As though someone had, in a moment of deep anger lashed out and been unable to stop, and as a result almost literally scratched her eyes out. Her wrists were thin, thinner than seemed right, her face white under what looked like several layers of dirt, and her hair matted, long and circling into frightfully filthy dreadlocks. As the snow landed on her head, some of it slipped, coming off a different colour.

Hikari had seen homeless children, of course, both in person in certain parts of Tokyo and on the internet. In her furious research as a self-proclaimed political activist who wanted to learn all about Burkina Faso and Somalia and the starvation and hunger problems of the world, she had seem pictures of emaciated children, filthy, abandoned and forlorn. Though this girl was slightly better fed than some of those children, Hikari thought she had never seen something quite so pathetic and uncared for.

There was something about the sight the little girl presented, the idea of her standing outside in the snow and looking towards the window of a warmer house... something about the mismatched clothes, the feet buried beneath the falling snow... something quite lost, and forlorn, and in a rather strange way, something recognisable. Hikari knew what it was to be that cold now, and she was suddenly confused. Why, if she wasn't going to kill her, was she standing in the cold like that?

"Aren't you cold?" asked Hikari, unable to think of anything else to say.

The girl stared at her for so long and so piercingly that Hikari began to wonder whether she could hear her at all and if she truly was going to feast on her flesh. She certainly looked thin enough to think of that as a healthy prospect. Finally, the little girl nodded twice, slowly, and drew her hands out of her pockets to show her blue fingers, torn in placed where blood had frozen to look almost black. Hikari almost recoiled at the sight, and suddenly knew what she wanted to do.

Still, rationality demanded that she have at least a modicum of self-preservation. "Are you going to kill me?" she asked, trying not to look at the girl's hands and unable to look away. Could she retain those fingers or were they lost to frostbite? Hikari shuddered at the thought of an ancient Chinese amputation, without medicines or anesthesia or a doctor.

The girl stared at her again, as though not quite comprehending her question. A minute later, just as Hikari was about to repeat herself, she shook her head.

"Okay," said Hikari. "Wait here for two minutes, and I'll come back."

But as she turned, a small hand reached for hers and gripped it with sudden, swift urgency. Hikari turned to find the girl shaking her head, and though her expression did not change, Hikari had the distinct impression she was scared. "Um, but," Hikari began. She had been about to wake up Batu and ask for help, and explain the situation gently. She didn't know how to deal with frostbites and skinny hungry little girls half frozen to death. But she had to admit she had no idea what Batu would do. For all she knew, the older woman would think drowning the little girl in the hot springs was a better idea.

There was no reason to trust the little girl either. The last time Hikari had been this close to her, she had taken blood from her arm. On the other hand, she had only been doing what she had been told to. Maybe she had been instructed only to watch Hikari. Or maybe it was smarter to draw her away and kill her where no one could hear her screams. And then feast on her flesh.

Hikari scowled, making up her mind. "Okay," she said, "I'm going to trust you. Don't eat me."

The little girl hung her head, but did not let go of Hikari's hand. Her fingers were like blocks of idea. Taking a deep breath, Hikari led the girl through the village towards the hot springs.

It became quickly clear to her that her ability to consistently "watch" Hikari had nothing to do with vision at all. The girl was completely blind and stumbled on everything in her path, rocks and twigs and little blocks of snow. She fell so often that Hikari started to guide her verbally, and eventually, when it seemed as though she really wouldn't be able to make it, offered to carry her. The girl clambered into her arms almost immediately, clinging to Hikari so tightly that she almost couldn't breathe. But after that they made quicker progress.

Everything in the snow covered forest was silent and grey. Hikari was oddly unafraid, given that she was carrying the thing she was most terrified of in her arms. It was almost painfully silent but even that was oddly comforting. She would hear anything or anyone if they came close enough to bother her. It was strange, and she felt quite weird doing it, and at the same time, she felt comfortable, almost sort of ... as though this was the right thing to do.

If the girl was only doing what she was told, then she wasn't dangerous until she was told to be. And there was no one to tell her to do anything, not here in the silent bowels of Hokkan's mountains. And if Hikari had learned anything today, it was that a little kindness could go a long way.

So she carried her to the caves with the hot springs. When the girl stood by the pool, looking completely confused, Hikari undressed her and led her into the pool. It was unnerving, not only because of the girl's slightly odd disposition, but also because of how easily she trusted Hikari. She did everything Hikari asked her to, undressing with no shame and complete candor, stepping into the pool when asked, sitting down at the spot Hikari indicated, so that Hikari could use the warm water to bathe her, slightly awkwardly at first, and then with ease, taking care to be very gentle. It occurred to her that the little girl's did not _trust_ so much as she _obeyed_.

For a girl so little that she barely came up to Hikari's thigh, she was scarred everywhere. Her wrists and ankles were marked with white scars from manacles, as though they had been burned into her skin. Her right ear had a similar mark and seemed almost shredded. There were whip marks all over her back, though these seemed more precise, more careful than the scratches over her eyes. As Hikari bathed her, she found herself horrified and terribly moved, both disgusted and full of a painfully soft compassion. It was difficult now, sitting here in the pool, to be scared of the child. A distant part of her mind remained aware that such obedience could just as swiftly be turned into a weapon. But the scars on her body, her complete surrender, her total lack of fight, made it very difficult to feel anything other than pity.

After she had bathed her, Hikari made her stay in the water, to unfreeze her fingers and toes, while she washed her clothes. She was not too sure how frostbite worked, but she had a vague idea that it was better to keep the fingers and toes in a warm space for as long as possible. A while later, when the clothes were washed, she had the girl hold her fingers up to find they had almost completely healed. That was a little odd. But then again, her own scars along her arms were a lot better as well. The water in the springs, for whatever reason, was healing them both.

Indicating that the little should put her hands back into the water, Hikari sat down and considered the situation. They had a while before the clothes dried, and the hot water was a good way to stay warm. Hikari too sat by the pool and put her feet in, this time consciously noticing that the small aches and pains in her feet dissipated in a few moments. This didn't surprise her as much as it might have before; after everything she had been through, magic hot springs were hardly a bolt from the blue.

"Are you going to talk to me now?" she asked the girl, presently, but knew that she wouldn't. "Can you talk?" she asked, as an afterthought, to be rewarded with a small nod after a long moment. It was as though words took longer for the girl to process, as though she was a bit slow. Or perhaps it had just been a while since someone had spoken to her. "It's okay if you don't want to talk," added Hikari, shrugging.

The questions that had started to form in her mind before, after the nature of the nine-headed beast, came back to her as she considered the girl. She was sure that either Jiang the black-eyed, black-hearted and cruel commander who had accosted Reishun and her at Shishantsung, or Commander Xiang, who somehow felt like the political head of their creepy little outfit, the voice, the most visible and for all intents the leader, had told the little girl to follow her.

"Did Jiang tell you to follow me?" she asked, finally, deciding to simply check.

The girl's white eyes pierced Hikari again, and again, for the longest time, it seemed as though she would not answer. But then, at long last, she nodded, twice, slowly, as was her wont.

Hikari nodded as well, processing this. "And he told you not to kill me?" Again, a pause, and then two nods, slow but sure.

"And if he had told you to kill me, you would have done that?" asked Hikari, and was rewarded with a deep chill and shudder as the girl nodded again. "Even now?" she asked, her heart beginning to race a little.

The girl paused for a slightly longer time at this, as though thinking about it. In the end she did nod, but Hikari noticed two shimmering tears roll down her cheeks and into the pool - as though she did not want to, but would be compelled by Jiang no matter what she wanted. It was almost like he was her parent, a cruel and unrelenting father. But Hikari decided now to test out another theory she had been formulating for the last few weeks.

"Is Jiang... are you... are you both pieces of the nine-headed beast? Are you a part of him?"

But this time the girl shrugged, looking very distraught and almost depressed, as though not being able to answer the question made her fearful and sad. She wanted to please Hikari, the thirteen-year-old realised, even if she would not hesitate to kill her if she was ordered to. Maybe she was afraid that if she didn't, Hikari would hurt her. "It's okay," she said, trying to keep her voice soothing. "Don't worry about it." Then, deciding to change the subject to happier matters, she asked, "Are you hungry? I can sneak you out some food later if you like. You could come in-" As the girl started to shake her head vigorously, Hikari cut herself off. "Okay, don't come in. I'll bring some food out to you. Would you like that?"

And again, a short pause as though it took her a long time to process kindness, and two short, slow nods.

The snow had stopped falling and the sky was turning from black to greyish pink when they emerged from the caves, the little girl's clothes having dried up for the most of it. Hikari wasn't sure what they were to do now. She didn't want the girl to leave by any measure, but she knew taking her back to the village was not an option - because of how scared the girl was and also because of how the villagers would respond.

In the end, she decided that packing her with food was the best she could really. And maybe when she travelled here on out, she would keep an eye out for her. A part of her wondered if she was just generally being kind or stupid or actually rather cunning by making friends with one of the "enemy". But the truth was the girl would kill her if told to, and Hikari had no doubt about it. She didn't LIKE the girl, but felt infinite pity for the creature, for she didn't seem to be in control, exactly. If anything she was like a highly obedient and very ill-treated pet. And somehow, spending time with the girl had been less upsetting and undoing than spending time with Batu, or Tomite and Hikitsu, whose respective dispositions left Hikari winded and terrified.

In a strange way, she was looking forward to running away from their homely village and exuberance and songs and beauty. She didn't want to make friends, like Tomite had almost insisted on doing, or talk about her plans, or share and ask for support and eat in groups. She didn't want any of it, even though the physical comfort was tempting. She wanted the shroud of her solitude back, the quietness in which she could hide her deepest fears and darkest feelings, and protect everyone else from her own fate. In a way it was fitting for her to make friends with the enemy; a part of her knew she had to confront the nine-headed beast at some point before it all ended.

As they reached the village, though, Hikari realised her craving was not to be satisfied. In the center of the huts, beside the fire that had been rekindled to smolder and splutter in the snowy morning, sat the tall rider, her other pursuant. There was no time to run, for even as Hikari registered his presence, he looked up, locking his gaze on her so his presence - and her failure to keep him away - was inescapable.

Eian.


	8. 07 The Life and Times of Maternal Mandib

**Chapter Seven**

**The Life and Times of Maternal Mandibles**

* * *

Something was up. Yui had an antenna for that kind of thing now. It had started to grow when she had become pregnant with Jun, starting with a little stump of a feeling and evolving, eventually, into all out intuitive feelers, which started to ring when either Tetsuya or Jun were doing something they thought she didn't know.

She had, unlike other mothers, decided not to reveal this super power or try to threaten her child and husband with it. It seemed to her that this was counter-productive and just bad logic. Why would you TELL people you could sense their questionable ulterior motives? It so antithetical to Sun Tzu that Yui could not abide by it. Instead, she would sometimes sit at her desk in the study and visualise magical pokey feelers sticking out of her head and sensing into the house. Like a very maternal, and significantly clean, cockroach.

Her magical mandibles had failed in the last month, somehow, to inform her as to what her son and husband were up to.

She was quite functional, really. This last month, she had done everything right. Every day, she woke up like clockwork at six, made breakfast, drove Jun to school, went to work, called Tetsuya at work to check in around noon to make sure he could bring Jun home, went to the organic vegetable mart on the way back and came home to cook. She spent time with Jun doing his homework in the evening, sat and watched television with Tetsuya for an hour before bed, and then slept, ready to repeat the cycle.

But there was something amiss and Yui was intelligent enough to know that she was, in fact, not looking at the actual problem. That two of her best friends and their daughter, who she loved like her own, were missing, that the book that had systematically torn her life and sense of self apart was back and had spilled into the pristine life she had built so carefully after. Of course, she didn't want to look at that, and it seemed that her superpower was on strike.

So though she had an intellectual inkling that something was probably going on, her mind and heart could not catch up with it. It was thus, unsurprising, if quite unsettling that she had been caught off guard and taken aback by many things over the month.

Jun had taken a sudden interest in Asian geography and spent a lot of time building maps of his own, drawing on large sheets of paper he had "somehow found" (i.e. stolen) in his dad's office with his crayons and writing in what looked like code in his scrawny handwriting. This wasn't particularly new; Jun was an imaginative kid, very interested in everything and extremely good at his studies. But he was writing in English too, which was wholly new for him, because he hated writing in English. At the same time, Tetsuya had gone to work early for the whole month, which was by itself rather odd, and he hadn't been late to pick up Jun a single time. He had also cleaned the house up after the book had burned down. And neither of them had insisted on ice-cream for dessert for four whole weeks. These were all, by and large, unprecedented firsts in the Kajiwara household.

But it didn't add up, though in a different state of mind, she might have made sense of it. Currently, she was far more concerned with her schedule and making sure everything was normal. It was a kind of madness, she knew it; she also knew that this meant her instincts were totally odd. And so it didn't surprise her that she was caught off guard when she came home to find Jun sitting on the floor and drawing with crayons on a giant physical map of China that looked like it might have once hung in his geography class, next to a very thick, very dusty old book.

Her first instinct was to throw the book into the fireplace. Then she remembered they didn't have a fireplace, and considered boiling the book in very hot water. A moment later, she calmed down and was reminded that just because one old dusty book had eaten her once did not mean all old dusty books were out to get her. So she smiled, putting her bag in its usual place, hanging the keys in THEIR usual place, and heading to her son.

"Hello Jun," she said, ruffling his hair gently. "What have you got there?"

"It's a map," said Jun, informatively. "And a book."

"I see that," said Yui, looking over the map. But it was scrawled over in a manner that to her seemed completely messy, full of English lettering which was Jun's code. The book seemed mute and unappealing, but Jun was peering over it with great interest, blocking her view of it. "Are you looking for something?"

"Yes," said Jun, solemnly.

Yui allowed a few second to pass just in case he wanted to volunteer than information. When he didn't, she nodded and stood.

It was not in her nature as a mother to pry and ask too many questions, even if she was curious beyond belief. Seven years of getting to know Jun had led to the clarity that her son was best left to his own devices.

It did poke at her mind a bit, leading to some spikes of anxiety, that he was looking at what looked like northern China, but panicking and telling him NOT to do that would have exactly the opposite effect on him. Just as it had with that earring. She hadn't seen that in a while, and had assumed that Tetsuya had taken it when he'd cleaned the house, but she remembered the adverse and terrifying consequences of telling Jun not to touch it. He had landed up speaking, and rather fondly too, to Nakago. That had remained the central focus of Jun's attention for a while. So really, the shift of Jun's interest to geography had been a welcome relief, and Yui wasn't about to clear the way for him to go back to talking about Obake Ojisan.

No, it was best to leave Jun be. She knew, at any rate, that he would tell her when he was ready, when he thought he had done everything he could within his power and needed help.

Her magical mandibles were entirely silent as she headed to the kitchen, putting on a pot of tea and taking the vegetables out of their bags to chop. A blissful sense of quietude joined her in the kitchen, and she worked comfortably for about half an hour. It was when she was just about ready to strain the noodles that Jun walked in, looking defeated and crayon-stained.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" asked Yui, pleased that her prediction had come true. Parenting. People thought it was a mystery but really, nothing the Art of War couldn't resolve. Yui smiled.

"I can't find Hokkan," said Jun, morosely, and the pot slipped a bit from Yui's hands. Then, he blinked, his interest shifting momentarily. "Kaasan, why are you throwing all the noodles into the sink?"

* * *

It took Hikari several moments to realise that the little girl was gone. She had not even felt it happen, but somehow the tiny hand in hers had slipped away. There was no trace of her but small footprints leading into the forest. As Eian's horse stomped, tied to a post near the fire, Hikari felt irrationally furious. It was him. He had chased her away, and now that little girl was in the forest, alone and by all means hungry.

The anger Hikari had not allowed to surface for the last few weeks exploded inside her. She knew it wasn't particularly rational, but it was easier to blame Eian for everything. Why was he HERE? If he was here, she was trapped. She couldn't leave now, not without him trying to stop her or force his help down her throat, and she didn't WANT it, damn it. And more than that, she didn't want to talk about it. A viciously black hatred rose in her, latching onto anything that seemed even vaguely responsible for her predicament: Nyan Nyan, who had refused to help her and landed her here, in this stupid space where everyone wanted to do exactly what she was trying to prevent, Tomo, for his callous, nasty remark, Soi, who had disappeared completely for some insane reason, Batu and Tomite and Hikitsu, and this stupid, stupid country. And Eian, who was here, who reminded her of Reishun and Amefuri (both of whom he had been, in her opinion, an ass to), and of the battle in the woods, and Houki's deep sorrow, and Taikyoku...

Taking a deep breath, determined to send Eian away even if she had to actually physically shove him away. He stood as she walked towards him, looking annoyingly tall and somehow warm and well-kept despite the fact that he had been in the same snow storm and forest she had been in, despite his weeks of travel and that someone had stolen his comb. In the white snow, he was looked all the more stark, his features well defined and handsome, though Hikari only wanted to slap him for it. At least his hair was less stupidly shiny.

"You were difficult to find," he said, as she reached him, speaking remarkably calmly. Somehow this annoyed Hikari more than everything else.

"I didn't want to be found," snapped Hikari, glaring at him. "I had Nyan shield our chi signatures, which she has apparently stopped doing."

"Actually, no, I cannot sense your chi signatures even now," said Eian. He sounded almost formal, rather business-like. As though whatever their circumstances it was important to be polite. "There were only two villages you could have gone to from the restaurant, where Nyan used her powers last. This is the second village I've checked."

For a person who valued rationality and logic, Hikari found herself inexplicably annoyed at his succinct and neat explanation, though at least it meant Nyan was still working with her and protecting her. "And now what?" she demanded, rather rudely. "I don't want you here."

"Well," said Eian, his voice almost gentle. "It's really your choice. Either you can accept my help and considerable expertise-"

_Git,_ thought Hikari, furiously.

"- and we can work together, or you can run, and I can continue to follow you. I would prefer the former; it's a lot less tedious and allows me to sleep a little more. But I am happy to respect your choice."

Hikari didn't know how to respond to this, though in some ways it had been exactly what she had wanted to hear. Somehow, hearing him say it was anticlimactic, almost a bit disappointing. She was saved by a voice from behind Eian, a sort of angry-but-still-somewhat-sleepy yell. Batu had emerged from the hut and was carrying something that looked like a large staff. "Who are you?! You get away from her!" she yelled, rushing to them as though to prod Eian with a staff. "Do you know this man, Hikari? Who is he? What is he doing here? And where have you been?" she added, turning to her furiously. "Your bed was slept in, but you were gone - you really shouldn't be talking to strangers by yourself." This seemed to remind her of Eian, and she rounded on him, placing herself squarely between them. "And you! You get away from her. Who are you anyway?!"

Eian, who seemed completely unruffled by the furious woman and the staff hovering near his face, surprised her into silence by kneeling before her. "Shu Eian," he said, bowing very low, and speaking so politely that Batu lowered her staff almost immediately. "Suzaku Seishi Hotohori. I have been following Hikari-chan," he studiously ignored Hikari's growl, "for a while now, trying to make sure she doesn't get into trouble. But she is very good at keeping herself hidden, and I have only just caught up."

Batu had raised her staff again, though significantly less threateningly. "And why was she running away from you!?" she demanded, ready to jump to Hikari's defense.

"She-"

"I'm not," said Hikari, shortly. "I'm not running away from him, I'm just... I just have things to do and he's not involved!" she finished, her voice a little tighter, especially since this wasn't strictly true, given that he was carrying the other Shinzaho in his bag. But she glared at him, as though challenging him to contradict her. Eian, however, said nothing.

Batu seemed to consider this for a longish moment. Then, she lowered her staff and shook her head, as though still deeply disappointed, with them both, and certainly holding back a lecture or two. "Have some breakfast," she said, throwing them both a reproachful look, before turning and stalking back into the house.

"I'm not going to," began Hikari, starting to feel panicked again. But Eian cut her off smoothly.

"It would be valuable to eat before you leave," he said, still very solemn. "I do not intend to hold you back, Hikari-ch-" He cut himself as off as she glared. "But it would be valuable for you to have food in your stomach, would it not?"

Hikari had to admit this was true. Still she spent half a moment trying to find a way out of eating breakfast, which felt like a strange social obligation in the fact of everything else that was going on. There is a damned war on, her mind screamed, and we're having breakfast! She hung her head as she realised that her bag was inside and she did need her meager supplies if she was to head off into the wild, freezing north.

"Fine," she snapped, stalking back into the house without looking at Eian.

Much to Hikari's extreme irritation, Nyan Nyan popped into visibility the moment she saw Eian and attacked him with hugs. On the plus side, it scared the crap out of Tomite, eliciting a sound that he spent much of the morning trying to cover by being particularly deep-voiced and solemn, especially when he was around Eian, whose deep baritone did not help matters. Hikari was trying very hard not to notice this.

Breakfast was a strange affair. The five of them, Nyan Nyan included, crowded into the tiny hut, drinking some rather warm and settling herbal tea and some truly excellent stew. People were, generally speaking, quiet, and Hikari had a sense of entrapment and panic that grew with every bite. This was mingled with resentment and anger.

She caught Eian looking at her a number of times, as though he knew that she was plotting her escape, and was determined to follow her anyway, even if it meant that he would not sleep for another day, even if he had to sacrifice Batu's admittedly expert cooking. Hikari could see the dark circles under his eyes and that he had lost some weight, despite seeming a lot more put together than she was. Tomite however stared at her rather studiously, which was more difficult to ignore. He had opened his mouth a number of times to say something, but Batu's warning glare or, in one occasion, a solid knock on his head, had kept him from saying whatever he had to.

Hikari was grateful for this. She wanted nothing more than to leave and avoid looking at the situation realistically. She had been found. There was no way, now, that she would be able to keep going as she had been. Studiously, she ignored the part of her that felt maybe a little relieved at this, and focused on the far more vocal and substantial part of her that was determined to hate everyone and be incredibly angry. Even though no one was saying anything, exactly, and were all acting remarkably normally for people who had become acquainted with Nyan Nyan in the recent past.

Nyan Nyan, who was sitting in Eian's lap now, kept throwing her sad, resentful sorts of looks that left Hikari more rattled than she would have liked to admit. The bitter truth was that she had in her self-centered rage and grief been too rough with the tiny girl. Eian's words had reminded her something else, something she had forgotten. Nyan Nyan was bound to her by Taiitsukun's orders, and perhaps magic. In a sense, she had that in common the little blind girl: they were both compelled, bound by orders of people who did not know how much they would have to go through in order to fulfill those orders, or perhaps knew and did not care. She felt a rare burst of regret and compassion she did not often feel around Nyan Nyan, too preoccupied with being frustrated with the tiny girl.

"I'm sorry," she said, rather suddenly, making everyone look up and peer at her. "I mean... Nyan Nyan. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be that rude to you."

Nyan Nyan's lower lip wobbled and Hikari looked firmly back at her empty bowl. "Kowaiineechan," said the little girl, clearly moved. Hikari tried not to think of the ethical imbalance of using Nyan Nyan's powers now. But the truth was she would not make it very far without Nyan Nyan. She needed her to See, and be able to find direction, if nothing else.

"Thank you for your kindness," she said, quietly, looking at Batu particularly. "I am leaving now."

"Where are you going?!" demanded Tomite, as Eian stood up, leaving an unfinished bowl of soup on the floor.

Hikari, who was still scrambling to stand, glared at him. "And you're not coming," she said. "Nyan Nyan-"

"Wait for just a minute-"

"WHERE are you going?!"

"Kowaiineechan-"

"OI!" yelled Hikari, over this babble of voices. "SHUT UP. Look, this was the deal. I'd do all your crazy - and very very kind, but completely crazy - customs and eat and be ... normal, as if everything is okay, for a day, and now I have to go. And I DON'T WANT YOU HERE, EIAN," she yelled, before offering him an anatomically improbable suggestion at the same volume, causing Batu to make a noise like an angry horse. "GOODBYE NOW-"

But as Hikari turned to move, icy arrows flew to the door, landing in a criss-cross manner until the opening was completely sealed. A shriek sounded and Hikari turned to find Nyan Nyan bound in a prison of ice as well. She turned, furious, but Eian had moved quicker, the tip of his sword resting now Tomite's throat. "Wait-" Hikari said, but the staff - now coated in frozen water shaped like a sharp blade had descended through the air, forcing Eian to bring his sword up to defend himself. Tomite took the opportunity to shoot more ice, this time encasing Eian's wrists and pinning him to the wall.

The sword clattered to the ground as Tomite turned to Hikari. "Alright," he said, looking only slightly winded from all the sudden movements, but mostly just a bit cocky and pleased with himself. "Enough pussyfooting. Where the hell are you going, and what the hell is going on? I am Genbu warrior, and I have the right to know what's happening to my land."

"Tomite!" said Batu, in a chastising sort of tone. As though he had simply broken a toy or something.

"Mother," said Tomite, with just a hint of plaintive-ness. "Not now, okay? She needs to talk to us. This is absolutely ridiculous. And who is this-" He turned to size up Eian, one eyebrow quirked as he assessed the warrior. Eian had his calm, fighting face on, Hikari realised, and did not look particularly winded. He did look intensely furious and focused in his collected manner, but there was an edge of hardness about him now, his chin set. Hikari could sort of see why some people, like Reishun and perhaps even Hanako, might find this cute and interesting and maybe even kind of sexy, in that morose, intense warrior sort of way. "This jerkface," finished Tomite, with alacrity, reminding Hikari of the situation at hand and that, with all his intensity, Eian was in fact a jerkface.

"He is a Suzaku warrior, Tomite," snapped his mother, whacking the back of his head again. "You are on the same side!"

"How do we know?! They're being awfully cagey and suspicious."

"I told you what I'm doing here," said Hikari, shaking. It had been a trying morning to say the least, and she was stressed, panicky again, and the graceful violence of Tomite's movements, did not help. Nor did the sounds of Nyan Nyan crying in her cage. She was sure Tomite and Hikitsu were on the same side as Eian and her. It was instinct more than the marks of Genbu on them. But she did not want to drag them to their deaths. Not to mention, Tomite had gone right back to being a complete ass. "I'm looking for the Shinzaho of Genbu."

"Yes, and it's my job to protect it!" declared Tomite. "Why should I trust you?!"

"Why should I trust you!?" Hikari threw back at him. "You've attacked me in the woods, and you're hurting Nyan Nyan and the jerkface!"

"We gave you sanctuary!"

"No, your mother gave me sanctuary. You gave me frostbite."

"You are lying," said Tomite, snarling and taking a step towards her. "You're hiding something and I don't care what Hikitsu says about taking the time to convince you and all this "trust" rubbish."

Struggling to ignore Nyan Nyan, who was sobbing as though terrified, Hikari stared at him steadily. That was in fact her assessment of the three Seishi at the village as well: Eian would follow her no matter what she said but not argue about it, Hikitsu would take the time to convince her otherwise, and Tomite would simply disregard her choices. "I can tell," she said, dryly, though she was unsteady and jittery.

"Tomite," said Batu, now sounding even more stern. She stood across from Hikari, staring at her son with trepidation. "Stop it."

"No, she has to talk now," snapped Tomite. "This is really not-"

But what it wasn't they never found it. There was a sharp cracking sound in the air, and before either Hikari or Tomite could quite register what had happened, Eian had burst away from the icy shackles and launched himself at Tomite. They landed on the floor, rolling over a few times as Tomite proceeded to employ the most ancient battle tactic of punching every part of his assailant. Nyan Nyan was now screaming. Hikari found herself frozen and wanting to scream for a few moments as well, not just bewildered but also suddenly terrified. They could kill each other, she was sure of it. It would take one well-placed shard of ice in Eian's chest to end his life, or Eian snapping Tomite's neck in half-

"ALRIGHT I'LL TELL YOU!" yelled Hikari, horrified.

But before anyone could even register that she had yelled, something burst in through the two slits for windows, pouring into the hut. Hikari had a split second impression of a hoarding light blue, watery looking, and yet somehow stampeding animals before she ducked out of their way. The figures leapt into the air and splashed all over Eian and Tomite, eliciting yells of horror from them both.

It was water, Hikari realised, as the freezing cold seeped in through her clothing. It was freezing effing water, apparently sentient, which had just broken up the fight between Eian and Tomite by treating them as one would have treated squabbling, mad dogs. Shocked silence fell in the wake of this. Even Nyan Nyan was quiet, completely stunned. Then, someone yelled from outside the hut.

"UNSEAL THIS DOOR, TOMITE." It was Hikitsu, his voice carrying the same note of uncompromising severity that Batu's had. "OR I WILL FLOOD YOU OUT."

This seemed to snap Hikari back to her initial motivations of breaking up the fight as well. A certain clarity of intention struck her now.

She growled, falling over her feet as she scrambled to get up. She intended to shake him senseless, even if her limbs, now shaking with actual cold, again, were not quite complying. Never mind. She would get up eventually and then she would grab him and shake him. "You moronic, completely headstrong FOOL," she said, punctuating this by slipping on the floor a bit. Tomite was almost within reach now. It was at this conjuncture that her foot met an empty bowl of soup and she tumbled headlong into the pile of limbs that was Eian and Tomite.

Never mind, she thought fiercely at her elbow, which cried out in agony as it collided with the hard floor. Never BLOODY mind.

She turned to grab Tomite by the collar, aware that her left knee had landed somewhere on the general area of Eian's stomach. Never mind that either. "Do it. Do what he said. And LET NYAN NYAN OUT." She added several rude words to that. She was yelling, she registered, not quite in control of the volume of her voice. She couldn't seem to stop either. A strange mixture of fear, shock, exhaustion and deep, unadulterated annoyance that was driving her. "DO IT. RIGHT NOW. AND I'LL TELL YOU EVERYTHING."

* * *

The atmosphere in the forest was tense, though only part of it was the mortal danger they were all in. Reishun, for her own part, was struggling with some nausea that was acting up for no good reason. At least the last time it had happened, there had been Eian to blame. This time, she could think of no one to blame but herself. The words that had escaped her haunted her. She wished she could lie to herself and say that she hadn't known what she was saying. But the truth was that she had known exactly what it was about and how much hurt it would cause her.

And that she had wanted to cause that pain, partly out of a desire to lash out, but mostly in order to matter. The Byakko Seishi's insistence on treating like she did not exist or matter in the grand scale of things was not upsetting so much as it was altogether invalidating. As though she was invisible and did not matter at all. Reishun found she was incredibly hurt and undone by it.

"Forgive me for saying so," said the Shenwu, snapping her out of her lopping thoughts. He was rather clearly aware of the tension, which at this point was so palpable that it was akin to being aware of a hoard of baboons walking alongside them. "You seem... less than well."

Donghai, walking a little way ahead with the children, made the snorting sound Reishun was too polite to make in front of the Shenwu. Well, that wasn't true; it wasn't out of politeness that she held back so much as it was a sense of complete vulnerability and exposure. The man had a way of looking at you that made you feel naked - not like Donghai's relaxed nakedness, but in a shameful, painful sort of way.

To his credit, he was being incredibly delicate and sensitive. It was a highly understated way to referring to the fact that Reishun had basically emptied the contents of her stomach at every mile, leading Amefuri to comment on how it was so helpful for her to leave behind a trail for their enemies. This had been so deliberately unhelpful and hurtful that Reishun, almost in response, had for a couple of hours doubled her rate of ...expulsion. She was feeling weak, queasy and vastly exhausted. And the Shenwu's remark brought up the thing she had been trying not to think about: the prospect of traveling with a man who was so perceptive. Suddenly her bones felt altogether heavier.

"Stories are so useless," she said, mostly to change the subject, making Donghai trip over something in apparent confusion. She ignored him. "They tell you stupid things, about how bones are stories and telling your bones stories makes them come back to life. But how do you tell your bones stories?!"

Unbeknownst to her, at this conjuncture Donghai surmised, not incorrectly, that this was not the best time to point out that those kinds of things were usually metaphors.

But Reishun was preoccupied by the sense that she was being watched, watched by the Shenwu, watched by Amefuri's quiet presence behind them, even though the Byakko Seishi did not every seem to be looking at her, watched by the imaginary monsters in her mind, lurking just at the edges of the clearing. She could feel herself walking in a manner most unlike herself, with her shoulders hunched over and her arms crossed across her chest; a posture that indicated vulnerability, and a stomach ache, which in her case seemed synonymous.

"Is there a story about an idiot girl?" she asked, finally. "Who loved a boy, and kept loving the boy for four years, even though he left, and did not write back when she wrote to him desperately, and said nothing? And who was still somehow surprised and heartbroken when after four years, when he finally spoke to her, it was to say goodbye? Is there a story like that?"

She was dimly aware of Amefuri's gaze focused on the back of her skull, and she felt smaller than she ever had in the presence of the other woman - and she had always felt rather idiotic and small to begin with. In some ways that were very significant and also very strange, she felt vulnerable, and to a woman who could bodily lift several other people and toss them across significant lengths of spaces, this felt incredible weird. But that was what it was. There was a pain in her chest, right at the center, one that had been growing every day since Miaka had died and Eian had left and Hikari had gone missing. It was sharper now, as though speaking of this most secret hurt had somehow made it all the more difficult to bear.

But the Shenwu's eyes were kind and unwavering. He almost seemed to be considering her words as actual questions. Though, as always, when he responded, it was not a response at all.

"Once," he said, carefully, "there was a sparrow who loved a hedgehog. Every time she approached the hedgehog, his spines rose along his body and she ended up wounded and bleeding. She knew that if she kept loving him, she would die, but was compelled by habit and her fearful that she would never find love elsewhere. Eventually, she died, and the hedgehog, compelled by his nature, could neither reach out nor save her..."

"Oh!" said Reishun. Then, slowly, "So... Eian is the hedgehog...?"

The Shenwu did not respond to this, looking at Reishun very closely. Then, he raised his eyes to seek out Amefuri, sitting somewhere in the back. "Now imagine if there were two hedgehogs."

Not looking at him, and thus missing his gaze, Reishun seemed a bit confused about this. "Are you saying I hurt him too?" she asked, sounding almost a bit hurt at the suggestion.

The Shenwu brought his gaze back to her. "I suppose it's really about how you look at it."

They walked in silence through the forests. Even the children, who had had some unsettling and insistent questions for them, were silence. They had found Amefuri particularly fascinating, and Reishun could see why. Although she too was a Seishi, Amefuri looked the part to a far greater extent. She had been asked questions about blades, her clothes, why she wore her hair like a man's, did she actually think she was a man, about her home and family and pretty much everything. Most of the boys had decided, by the end of this interrogation, that they wanted to be like her.

What was perhaps more surprising was Amefuri's propensity to be patient with children as she generally wasn't with anyone. It made Reishun wonder why it had been harder for her to be patient with Hikari, who was the same age as the older boys. Perhaps it was just that, it occurred to Reishun. Perhaps it was precisely that she was terribly young and would be forced to face horrors that she really shouldn't have to see at her age. Intuitively, Reishun realised it probably had more to do with her own past, the horrors she remembered of her village being destroyed. She wanted, in that moment, to run to Amefuri and apologise profusely for what she had said. She'd had no business saying it, no business bringing up the terrible scars she had seen on her back when the woman had been injured and needing care.

But speaking of it here, in the presence of the Shenwu, the children and Donghai, was not likely to go down too well, she knew.

It was significantly colder than and the darkness somehow more dense by the time they reached the capital region. Chouhou lay in the middle of what had once been beautiful, luscious farmlands, which were now all destroyed. They saw the city silhouetted against the dark sky in the distance, across at a few miles of the ashy grey remains of the farms.

It was despicable, more so than it had sounded in words, though the Shenwu had tried to share what they were walking into. The devastation of the farmlands outside was notable. Entire fields had been razed to the ground. There was something painfully empty about them, something unnatural... a hush fell over the group as they walked through the area, taking in the sight without a word. Indeed there was very little to say. Though Reishun did take in the little patches of green had come up in the last few months as farmers salvaged enough of their lands to feed themselves. There was something painful about that too, in a strange sort of way - something almost pitiful of those small vestiges of hope amongst all the destruction. What would they do now that the winter was here? Would they have harvested enough from their little silvers of productive land to survive the cold?

But if the devastation of the farmlands outside the city had been bad, it was nothing compared to the devastation of the city itself. Reishun could see, having been raised in a farming community, remains of a marketplace that had once been bustling, buildings destroyed by soldiers who took minutes to tear down that which would have taken years, maybe decades to build up. There was something truly sad and forlorn about the city.

Chouhou was silent and still in a way that was deeply unsettling. It was a while before Reishun realised that the absence of guards at the gates and around the walls made the city altogether more eerie. Donghai and Amefuri had taken turns explaining that the Emperor's heirs had been forced to abandon the palace early on during the civil unrest. They had fled the capital, even before the civil unrest had stared, leaving behind no guards to protect the city gates. As far as they were concerned, they had anything that needed to be protected with them: treasure, gold, money. They had not considered the citizens of the city or the surrounding farmlands particularly worth protecting.

It was not Reishun's first encounter with the idea that the war between Kounan and Kutou had had casualties on both sides. She had grown up hearing about the loss and devastation, and her own sense of internal fidelity had left her with a sense of righteous pride in Kounan's part in the war. She had realised, after they had taken refuge with the Black Bear Tribe, and in their conversations about the state of Kutou's internal affairs in the last few weeks, that the devastation had been two-sided. Thanks to Suzaku's intervention and the wishes asked for by the Suzaku no Miko, Kounan had not suffered too much, though the losses had been painful. The young Emperor served as a reminder of those very losses. But she could see now how the war had ravaged the land of Kutou.

Unlike Kounan, the royal family here had not shielded its people. The Seiryuu Seishi and Miko had failed, disastrously by all accounts, to care for their country. And in the aftermath of war, the country had torn itself apart.

As Reishun looked sideways at the large, bear-like bandit, carrying three of the smaller children, who had fallen asleep while walking, on his back now, she could see that his expression as they walked grew steadily longer. Reishun though she knew what he was thinking. Where, in this squalor, would they leave the children? How could they be sure that they would be safe here? She couldn't help but wonder the same thing. It was not possible to take the children with them, by no means, considering how dangerous their mission was by itself. But there had to be something better than this.

The silent, ninja-like warriors, who guarded the Shenwu, and Amefuri's tense disposition, were almost wasted on the city. No one emerged from the shadows to attack them; no one seemed to care too much about their presence. Or perhaps they were frightened. Reishun had never understood her mother and aunts when they had spoken of the futility of war; a part of her had always been ready to take up arms, ready to fight for a cause. But there was a hollowness to this place that made their arguments starkly real. What good was a cause to a people who had lost everything?

The Shenwu led them through the alleyways, keeping an eye out for... something, as though he was almost expecting to be attacked. Once or twice, Reishun did feel something stirring in the shadows, watching them, but she was so tired that she was almost sure that her nightmares and memories were slipping into her waking life.

They came to a cobbled street. Trash and refuse was decaying on both sides, and Reishun resisted the urge to hold her nose as they walked through it. They walked through the twisting, turning streets of Chouhou, before arriving before a building that Reishun knew immediately was some kind of school. Maybe in the past, before war had left the country ravaged, it had been a doujo. The Shenwu, who seemed to know where he was going, had them stop and wait as he walked to the front door, and banged on it, hard.

The door swung open almost immediately, and a tall boy stepped out, holding a knife in each hand. "Who are you?!" he demanded, holding up the knives as though he intended to take them all on by himself. Clearly, he had been watching the streets for signs of intruders. He couldn't have been older than fifteen, Reishun realised, and though that was not significantly younger than she herself was, there was something _young_ about the boy, something far more vulnerable. He was a city lad, not a soldier, wiry and strong enough, but by no means capable of defending the doujo.

As he saw the Shenwu, however, he lowered his knives. "Oh, it's you," he said, trying not to sound too relieved and failing. Behind him through the windows, Reishun could see little faces peering out, also looking phenomenally relieved. "Why are you here?"

"I have another cohort for you, Aki," said the Shenwu, indicating the exhausted group of kids. Some of older ones were carrying others by this point. "Do you think you can handle them?"

Reishun knew before he spoke that he wouldn't refuse. There was a look about the boy that she recognised, something pigheaded and determined she usually associated with herself. But she was a Suzaku warrior, and this boy clearly wasn't. He put his knives away and did a quick headcount. "Twenty?" he said, not trying not to look too anxious. "I guess we could make it work. The farmlands aren't yielding much, but I can set this lot to work in our gardens."

The Shenwu nodded, and Reishun was suddenly angry with him. Why was he letting this boy take on so much? How was he supposed to defend the children here? "Wait," she said, shaking her head. "I don't understand. How are they going to defend themselves here alone?"

"I have been defending this place just fine for the last five years," the boy said, glaring at her. "Who the hell are you, his serving girl?"

"I'm Suzaku Seishi Nuriko," said Reishun, drawing herself to her full height. Never mind that they were the same height essentially. "Who are you?"

"...Aki," he said, still glaring. "This place is fine, okay?! And Miao Jian sends us food every now and again."

"But why?" asked Amefuri, stepping forward and drawing looks of general disbelief from everyone. "Why this doujo, specifically, I mean?" she finished, raising an eyebrow. Reishun, who had like the others thought she was making a case against feeding poor orphan children, cleared her throat and looked at the Shenwu. Amefuri did have a point, she had to admit.

The wizened old man looked at them both and there was a slight edge to his voice that indicated he was not too happy about being questioned like this, in front of his men and little children. But nonetheless, he answered. "We found that after the attack it was not safe for those who could not yet fight to stay with us," he said, calmly, and would say no more.

Reishun looked at Amefuri and Donghai, beginning to feel truly uneasy about the setup here. But a different voice cut her off.

"We will be fine here." It was one of the older boys, who was carrying the youngest on his back. "We can fight. You taught us," he added, looking at Donghai. "We can handle it."

"And our people," said the Shenwu, in a very low tone, now sounding slightly urgent, "are not far from here. Please, we do not have so much time. Even dead cities have ears."

It was the boy who settled it, walking firmly across to the threshold and holding out his hand to Aki. The latter regarded him with a strange boyish mixture of relief and contempt before accepting his hand. This seemed to settle it. The children traipsed in, some of them coming to hug Donghai tightly before they did. Reishun couldn't blame them, really. It had been a vastly exhausting day for them.

With nothing more to say, worries and doubts still weighing them all down, they turned to leave. There was a faint purple hue to the sky now, indicating dawn was not far away.

They had almost come to the end of the street when Reishun realised that Donghai was no longer moving. It was a mark of how unusually stressful the last few days had been that she thought immediately that he had been shot or injured in some way.

"Donghai!" she cried, and raced back to him,.

But as she came close to him she realised that he was not injured at all. He was simply not moving, as though a thought had just struck him. He had on his face an expression of determination and dawning understanding. And as she reached him, he took her hands.

"I can't come with you," he said, shaking his head and looking both very anxious and very sad.

Reishun shook her head. "No, we can take them elsewhere," she said, knowing it was because of how horrible how squalid this place was. It was terrifying, the idea of leaving twenty children in charge of five only slightly older ones. What would they do if they soldiers descended? And for that matter what would Donghai do? He was not a Seishi. His fighting skills left much to be desired, and even Reishun, whose skills were remarkably lacking, could see that.

But he grasped her hands tighter, cutting off her protests and ideas. "No," he said, very gently, speaking words she knew to be true, but somehow terrible. "You know you don't have enough time for this. You've got to go on-"

Losing Donghai - and that was exactly what it felt like, actually losing him, to the war and the unknown, the space where she was not sure when she would ever see him again - was somehow a prospect that struck her as terrible. Tears were flowing before she could stop them, and it made generally speaking no sense. Donghai was a bandit, one she had accosted. But she had truly begun to see him as a friend. And the idea of having to leave him behind was infinitely worse than the idea of having to travel with a grumpy Amefuri and a perceptive Shenwu by herself.

He did something she ought to have slapped him for then, and drew her into a warm, safe sort of hug. "I don't want you to," she said, her voice muffled against her chest. In that moment, her fears about Hikari and Eian, also out there somewhere, alone, battling god knows what kinds of evil forces, crashed on her in a way that was inexplicable. Donghai seemed to understand and stood there for a minute, rubbing her back. "I don't want you to stay behind," she said, again, clinging to him.

"I know," he said, finally, disengaging with her gently. "But you know I've got to. They can't stay here alone - they have no defenses."

"You are crap at defenses," said Reishun, her words more tearful than aggressive.

Donghai grinned. "Got them this far, didn't I?" he said, ducking his head to look at her. "I'll be fine. You've got to keep going and stop this crazy nine-headed beast woman person." Despite herself, she smiled, but kept shaking her head. "I'll be fine. Really. You have to keep going."

It took a monumental effort for her to move. She knew he was right, though she couldn't bring herself to believe that they would be safe. But then again, perhaps it was time that she owned the idea that it was not truly safe anywhere anymore, least of all with them. Taking a deep breath, she looked at him clearly and drew up a true smile, her first in several weeks, a smile touched by sadness and worry, but still the kind of smile you gave a friend when you were parting ways at a dangerous crossroads. "Be safe, Donghai," she said, in a voice that only shook a little.

He grinned, touching his knuckle gently to her chin. "And you, crazy Suzaku warrior," he said, drawing a true snicker. "Don't attack any more bandits, eh?"

"Go on with you," grinned Reishun, shaking her head and giving him a gentle push, looking only slightly abashed when he almost stumbled over.

She turned and walked away from him firmly after that, knowing that Shenwu and Amefuri believed this was the best way out too by their silence. They were waiting for her at the end of the street. But she as only halfway there when Donghai's heavy footsteps sounded and she turned, just as he called out, "Reishun wait!"

"What?" she asked, hoping he had changed his mind against all reason and logic. Why couldn't they travel across the country with twenty children, find the nine headed beast and the book and save the world without anyone being in mortal danger?!

"Listen," he said, panting a little, sounding slightly urgently. "Look." He paused, now looking slightly sheepish.

Reishun raised an eyebrow. "What?" she said, now suspicious.

"Look," said Donghai again, and cleared his throat as Reishun made an impatient sound. "That Shenwu guy... he may have pulled that sparrow and hedgehog rubbish out of his bum, okay? But it's not ... I mean think about it."

If there was anything she had expected him to say less... well, there wasn't. "What are you on about, Donghai?" she demanded.

"There are two hedgehogs, right? In that second stupid story?" When Reishun continued to look bewildered, he pressed on, looking a little bit as though he was resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "Well, one is you, and the other... well, it's not Eian, okay? Think about it!"

"What?!" demanded Reishun, now completely thrown, but he had already started to run down the street. "What do you mean?!" she yelled, frustrated.

"THINK ABOUT IT!" he yelled, sounding oddly pleased with himself, and then was gone.


End file.
